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A.bAaV Tu6UC5«vTJor/ OFTKC Be5T C0^H,E^n‘ £^^TAN;»^l(5>'uTE^kTVf^^ 


Vol. (J, No. S26. Dec. 27, 1883. Annual Subscription, $50. 


THE 


MKfe; 


ARD’S 

ON 


rOLIPHANT, 


AUTHOR OF “THE-UADIES LINDORES,” “SIR j 
TOM,” &c., &c. 


W:i<t« ivd at the Post Ofiice, N. Y., a.s socond-cla.s« matter. 
jpiiP Copyright, 1883, by John W. Lovkix Co.^ 







LOVELL’S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE. 


'i. Hyperion, Longfellow ,20 

2. Outre-Mer, do .20 

3. The Happy Boy, BjOrn- 

6on 10 

5 %. Arne, hy BjOrnson ... .10 

5. Frankenstein, Shelley. .10 

6. Last of the Mohicans. .20 

7. Clytie, Joseph Hatton. .20 
A The Moonstone, Part I .10 
&>. The Moonstone, Part II .10 

16tv,01iver Twist, Dickens. .20 

11. Coming Eace, Lytton. .10 

12. Leila, by Lord Lytton. .10 

13. The TAree Spaniards. . .20 

14. The Tricks of the 

Greeks Unveiled 20 

15. L’Abbe Constantin... .20 
>6. Freckles, by RedclifE. .20 
17. The Dark Colleen, Jay .20 

^18. They were Married!.. .10 
. 19. Seekers after God .20 

20. The Spanish Nun 10 

21. Green Mountain Boys .20 

22. Fleurette, Scribe 20 

23. Second Thoughts. 20 

24. The New Magdalen. . . .20 
25i' Divorce, Margaret Lee .20 

26. Life of Washington. . . .20 

27. Social Etiquette 15 

28. Single Heart and Dou- 
ble Pace, Chas. Eeade .10 

29^rene,,by Carl Detlef.. .20 
.OffT^Vice Versa, F. Anstey .20 

31 . Ernest Maltravers 20 

32. The Haunted House. .10 

33. John Halifax, Mulock .20 

34. 800 Leagues on the 
Amazon, by Verne.. .10 

35. The Cryptogram 10 

36. Life of Marion 20 

37. Paul and Virginia 10 

;38. Tale of Two Cities 20 

39, The Hermits, Kingsley .20 

40. An Adventure in 
Thule, and Marriage 
of M. Fergus, Black. .10 

4L Marriage in High Life. .20 

42. ^ Robin, by Mrs. Parr. . .20 

43. Two on a Tower 20 

44. Rasselas, Dr. Johnson .10 

45. Alice; or, Mysteries,. .20* 

46. Duke of Kandos 20 

47. Baron Munchausen... .10 

48. A Princess of Thule.. . .20 

49. The Secret Despatch.. .20 

50. Early Days of Chris- 
tianity .20 


di. Tom Brown’s School 

Days 20 

62. The V ooing O’t, P,t I .15 
The Wooing O’t, P’t II .15 
03. The Vendeta, Balzac. .20 
64,, Hypatia, by Kingsley, .15 
Do., Part II 15 

65. Selma, by Mrs. Smith. .15 

66. Margaret and her 

Bridesmaids .20 

67. Horse Shoe Robinson .15 

Do., Part II 15 

68. Gulliver’s Travels 20 

69 . Amos Barton, by Eliot .10 

70. The Berber, by Mayo. .20 

71. Silas Mamer, by Eliot .10 

72. Queen of the County. . 20 

73. Life of Cromwell, Hood. 15 
2^. Jane Eyre, by Bronte. .20 

■^5. Child’s Hist. England. .20 

76. Molly Bawn, Duchess .20 

77. Pillone, by BergsOe. . . .15 

78. ^ hyllis. The Duchess. ,20 
>4^rRomola, Eliot, Part I. .15 
/ Romola, Eliot, Part II ,15 

80. Science in Short Chap- 
ters.* .20 

81. Zanoni, by Lytton 20 

8^ A Daughter of Heth... .20 

'ti'd. The Right and Wrong 

Uses of the Bible 20 

84. Night and Morning. . , .15 

Do., Part II 15 

Shandon Bells, Black. .20 
'm. Monica, The Duchess. .10 

87. .Heart and Science 20 

Tne Golden Calf 20 

89. The Dean’s Daughter. .20 
,-00.^ Mrs, Geoffrey, Duchess .20 
Pickwick Papers, P’t I .20 

Do., Part II 20 

V. 9®r<Airy, Fairy Lilian 20 

w3.-Macleod of Dare 20 

94. Tempest Tossed 20 

Do., Part n .20 

' 95. Letters from High Lat- 
itudes, Earl Dufferiu .20 

96. GideonFley.ee 20 

97. India and Ceylon 20 

98. The Gypsy Queen, 20 

99. The Admiral’s Ward.. ,20 

100. Nimport, Bynner, P’t 1 .15 

Nimport, Part 11 15 

101. Harry Holbrooke 20 

102. Tritons, Bynner, P’t I. .15 

Tritons, Part II 15 

103. Let Noth’g You Dismay. 10 


52. Progress and Poverty. .20 

53. The Spy, by Cooper.. .20 

54. East Lynne, Mrs.Wood .20 

55. A Strange Story 20 

56. Adam Bede, Eliot, P’t I .15 

Do , Part II 15 

57. The Golden Shaft 20 

58. Portia, by The Duchess .20 

59. Last Days of Pompeii, .20 

60. The Two Duchesses... .20 


Do., Part II .. .20' IM. Lady Audley’s Secret. 20 

.51. Vicar of Wakefield... .KLaOS. Woman’kPlace To-day .20 


106. Dun^lan,!^ Kennedy .15 


10 ' 


Do., Part ir 15 

Housekeeping and 
Homemaking 15 

108. No New Thing, Norris .20 

109. Spoopendyke Papers, .20 

110. False Hopes 15 

111. Labor and Capital 20 

112. Wanda, Ouida. Part 1. .16 

Wancidt^Part II .15 




113. More Words ab» 

the Bible 

114. Monsieur Lecoq, P 
Monsieur Lecoq, P’t 

115. Outline of Irish His 

116. The Lerouge Case. . . 

117. Paul Clifford, Lyttoi 

118. A New Lease of Life 

119. Bourbon Lilies, 

1^. Other People’s Monc 
131. The Lady of Lyon 

122. Ameline da Bourg., 

123. A Sea Q,ueen, Russel 

124. The Ladies Lindores 

125. Haunted Hearts 

126. Loys, Lord Beresfore 

127. Under Two Flags — 
Do. (Ouida), Part II, 

128. Money, Lord Lytton. 

129. In Peril of his Life.. 

130. India; What Can . 

Teach Usf M. Miilh 

131. Jets and Flashes 

132. Moonshine and Mai 

guerites 

133. Mr. Scarborough' 

Family 

Do., Part II ,. .. 

134. Arden, Mary Robinso 

135. /Tower of Percemont. 

Yolande, Wm. Black 
Cruel London, Hatto: 
The Gilded Clique / . . 
Pike County Folks, . 
Cricket on the Heart! 

141. Henry Esmond 

I42»^4S trange Adventures o 

a Phaeton. 

143. Denis Duval,, Thack 

eray 

Old Curiosity Sho] 

Do., Part II 

rig, Ivauhoe, Scott, P’t I 

Do., Part 11... 

White Wings, Black 

'H7. The Sketch Book 

148. Catherine, Thackera; 
14.U. Janet’s Repentance. 

150, Barnaby Rudge, P’f. 
Barnaby Rudge, Ptl! 

151, Felix Holt, by Eliot. 

152, Richelieu, by Lytton 

153, Sunrise, Black, P’tl, 

Do, Part II... 

134. Tour of the World it 
Eighty Days, Verm 

155. Mystery of Orclval... 

156. Lovel, the Widower,, 

157. Romantic Adventure! 

of a Milkmaid. Hard] 

158. David Copperfield. 

Do., Part II 

159. Charlotte Temple..., 

160. Rienzi, Lytton, Part] 

Do., Part II 

161. Promise of Marriage. 

162. Faith and Unfaith 

163. The Happy Man. . . 

164. Barry Lyndon 


THE WIZARDS SON 


By MRS. OLIPHANT. 



NEW YORK.- 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 
14 & 16 Vesky Street. 



THE WIZARD’S SON. 


UL 




CHAPTER I. 




The Methvens occupied a little hou^e in the outskirts of 
a little town where there was not very much going on of any 
description, and still less which they could take anv share 
in, being as they were, poor and unable to make any effec- 
tive response to the civilities shown to them. The family 
consisted of three persons— the mother, who was a widow 
Avith one son ; the son himself, who was a young man of three- 
or four and twenty ; and a distant cousin of Mrs. Methven’s, 
who lived with her, having no other home. It was not a 
very happy household. The mother had a limited income 
and an anxious temper ; the son a some what volatile and indo- 
lent disposition, and no ambition at all as to his future, nor 
anxiety as to wnat was going to happen to him in life. This, 
as may be supposed, Avas enough to introduce many uneasy 
elements into their joint existence ; and the third of the 
party. Miss Merivale, Avas not of the class of the peace- 
makers to whom Scripture allots a special blessing. She 
had no amiable glamor in her eyes, but saAv her mends’ 
imperfections AAuth a clearness of sight Avhich is little con- 
ducive to that happy progress of affairs v/hich is called “ get- 
ting on.” The JMethvens were sufficiently proud to keep 
their difficulties out of the public eye, but on very manv oc- 
casions, unfortunately, it had become very plain to tliein- 
selves that they did not “ get on.” It Avas not any want of 
love. Mrs. Methven Avas herself aAvare, and her friends 
were in the constant habit of saying, that she had sacrificed 
everything for Walter. Injudicious iriends are fond of mak- 
ing such statements, by way, it is to be supposed, of increas- 
ing the deA'otion ana gratitude of the child to the parent : 
but the result is, unfortunately, A^ery often the exact con- 
trary of what is desired— for no one likes to have his duty 


4 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


in this resi)ect pointed out to him, and whatever good peo- 
ple may think, it is not in itself an agreeable thought that 
^‘sacrihces” have been made for one, and an obligation placed 
upon one’s shoulders from the beginning of time, indepen- 
dent of any wish or claim upon the part of the person served. 
The makers of sacrifices have seldom the reward which sur- 
rounding spectators, and in many cases themselves, think 
their due. Mrs. Methven herself would probably have 
been at a loss to name what were the special sacrifices she 
had made for Walter. She had remained a widow, but that 
she would have been eager to add was no sacrifice. She had 
lunched herself more or less to find the means for his educa- 
tion, which had been of what is supposed in England to be 
the best kind ; and she had, wlfile ha was a boy, subordinated 
her own tastes and pleasures fo his, and eagerly sought out 
everything that was likely to be agreeable to him. When 
tliey took their yearly holiday— as it is considered necessary 
now to do— places that Walter liked, or where he could find 
amusement, or had friends, were eagerly sought for. “ Wom- 
en,” Mrs. Methven said, can make themselves comfortable 
anywhere ; but a boy, you know, is quite different.” “ Quite,” 
Miss Merivale would say ; “ Oh, if you only knew them as 
well as we do ; they are creatures entirely without resources. 
You must put their toys into their very hands.” “There is 
no question of toys with Walter— he has plenty of resources. 
It is not that,” Mrs. Methven would explain, growing red. 
“ I hope that I am not one of the foolish mothers that thrust 
their children upon everybody ; but of course, a boy must 
be considered. Everybody who has had to do with men — 
or boys— knows that they must be considered.” A woman 
whose life has been mixed up with these troublesome beings 
feels the superiority of her experience to those who know 
nothing about them. And in tliis way, without spoiling him 
or treating him with ridiculous devotion, as the king of her 
fate, Walter had been “ considered ” all his life. 

For the rest, Mrs. Metliven had, it must be allowed, lived 
a much more agreeable life in the little society of Sloebury 
when lier son was young than she did now that he had come 
to years, mis-named, of discretion. Then she had given her 
little tea-parties, or even a small occasional dinner, at which 
her handsome boy would make his appearance when it was 
interesting everybody ; or, when absent, would 
still furnish a very pleasant subject of talk to the neighbors, 
who thought his mother djff a great deal, too much for him, 
but still were pleased to discuss a boy who was having the 
best ot educations, and at a public school. In those days she 
telt herself very comfortable in Sloebury, and was asked to 
all the best houses, and felt a modest pride in the certainty 
that slie was able to offer something in return. But matters 
were very different when Waltei was four and twenty in- 


THE WIZARDS SOMl 


5 

stead of fourteen. By that time it Avas apparent that he was 
not going to take the world by storm, or set the Thames on 
fire ; and, though she liad been too sensible to brag, Mrs. 
Methven had tli ought both these things possible, and per- 
haps had allowed it to be perceived that she considered 
something great, something out of the way, to be Walter’s 
certain career. But twenty-four is, as she said herself, so 
different ! He had been unsuccessful in some of his examin- 
ations, and for others he had not been “ properly prepared.” 
His mother did not take refuge in the thought that the ex- 
aminers were partial or the trials unfair ; but there was 
naturally always a word as to the reason why he did not 
succeed — he had not been ‘ properly prepared.” He knew 
of one only a few days before the eventful moment, and at 
this time of day, she asked indignantly, when everything is 
got by competition, how is a young man who has not “ cram- 
med ” to get the better of one who has ? The fact remained 
that at twenty-four, Walter, evidently a clever fellow, with 
a great many endowments, had got nothing to do ; and, w^hat 
was worse— a thing which his mother, indeed, pretended to 
be unconscious of, but which everybody else in the town re- 
marked upon — he was not in the least concerned about this 
fact, but took his doing nothing quite calmly as the course of 
nature, and neither suffered from it, nor made any effbrt to 
place himself in a different position. He “ went in for ” an 
examination when it was put before him as a thing to do, 
and took his failure more tnan philosophically when he failed, 
as, as yet, he had always done ; and, in the meantime, con- 
tentedly lived on, without disturbing himself, and tranquilly 
let the time go by— the golden time whicli should have 
shaped his life. 

This is not a state of affairs which can ])ring happiness to 
any household. There is a kind of ])arent— or rather it 
should be said of a mother, for no i^arent of the other sex is 
supposed capable of so much folly— to whom everything i- 
good that her child, the cherished object of her affections, 
does ; and this is a most happy regulation of nature, and 
smoothes away the greatest difficulties of life for many 
simple-hearted folk, without doing half so much harm as is 
attributed to it ; for disapproval has little moral effect, and 
lessens the happiness of all parties, without materiallv les- 
sening the sins of the erring. But, unfortunately, IMrs. Meth- 
ven was not of this happy kind. She saw her son’s faults 
almost too clearly and they gave her the most poignant 
pain. She was a pi’oud woman, and tha t he should suffer in 
the opinion of the world was 'misery and grief to her. She 
was stung to the heart by disappointment in the failure of 
lier many hopes and projects for him. She was stricken 
with sliame to think of all the fine things that had been pre- 
dicted of Walter in his boyisii days, and that not one of 


6 


THE WIZARDS SOH, 


them had come. true. People had ceased now to speak of 
the great things that Walter would do. They asked “ What 
was lie going to do?” in an entirely altered tone, and this 
we^Tt to her heart. Tier pride simered the most terrible 
blow. She could not bear the thought; and though she 
maintained a calm face to the world, and represented her- 
self as entirely satisfied, Walter knew otherwise, and had 
gradually replaced his old careless affection for his mother 
by an embittered opposition and resistance to her, which 
made both their lives wretched enough. How it was that 
lie did not make an effort to escape from her continual re- 
monstrances, her appeals and entreaties, her censure and 
criticism, it is very difficult to tell. To have gone away, and 
torn her heart with anxiety, but emancipated himself from 
a yoke which it was against the dignity of his manhood to 
bear, would have been much more natural. But he had no 
money, and he had not the energy to seize upon any way of 
providing for himself. Had such an opportunity fallen at his 
feet he would probably have accepted it with fervor ; but 
Fortune did not put herself out of the way to provide for 
him, nor he to be provided for. Noth withstanding the many 
scenes which took place in the seclusion of that poor little 
lioiise, when the mother, what with love, shame, mortifica- 
tirjii, and impatience, would all but rave in impotent passion 
appealing to^him, to the pride, the ambition, the principle 
whi(‘,}i so far as could be seen, the young man did not pos- 
sess. Walter held upon his w'ay with an obstinate perti- 
nacity, and did nothing. How he managed to do this without 
losing all self-respect and every better feeling it is impossible 
to sayg but he did so somehow, and was still “ a nice enough 
fellow,” notwithstanding that ever.ybod3^ condemned him ; 
and had not even lost the good opinion of the little society, 
though it was unanimous in blame. The only way in which 
he responded to his mother’s remonstrances and complaints 
' was by seeking his pleasure and such occupation as contented 
mini— which was a little cricket now and then, a little lawoi- 
tennis, a little flirtation — as far awa.y from her as possible ; 
and by being as little at home as possilile. His temper was a 
little spoilt by the scenes which awaited him ivlien he went 
home; and these seemed to justify to himself his gradu- 
al separation from his mother’s house; but never in- 
, duced him to sacrifice, or even modify his own course. 
He appeared to think that he had a jnstification for his 
conduct in the opposition it met with ; and that his ])ride 
was involved in the necessity for never giving in. If he had 
been let alone, he represented to himself, everything would 
liave been different ; but to 3deld to this perpetual bullying 
was against every instinct. And even the society which 
dis mproyed so much gave a certain encouragement to Wal- 
ter in this point of view ; for it was Mrs. Methven whom 


7 


'I'lIE IV/ZARD'S SON. 

everybody blamed. It was her ridiculous pride, or her fool- 
ish indulgence, or her sinful backing-up of his natural in- 
dolence ; even some people thought it was her want of com- 
prehension of her son which had done it, and that Walter 
would have been entirely a different person in diff'erent 
hands. If she had not thought it a fine tiling to have him 
appear as a useless line gentleman above all necessity of 
working for his living, it was incredible that be could nave 
allowed the years to steal by without making any exertion. 
This was what the town decided, not without a good deal of 
sympathy for Walter. What could be expected? Under 
the guidance of a foolish mother, a young man always went 
wrong ; and in this case he did not go wrong, poor fellow ! 
he only wasted his existence, nothing worse. iSloebury had 
much consideration for the young man. 

Perhims it added something to tlie exasperation with 
which IVIrs. Methven saw all her efforts fail that she had 
some perception of this, and knew that it was supposed to be 
her fault. Xo doubt in her soul it added to the impatience 
and indignation and pain with which she contemplated the 
course of affairs, which she was without strength to combat, 
yet could not let alone. Now and then, indeed, she did con- 
trol herself so far as to let them alone, and then there was 
nothing but tranquillity and peace in the house. But she was 
a conscientious woman, and, poor soul ! she had a temper— 
the very complacency and calm with which her son went upon 
his way, the approval he showed of her better conduct when 
she left nim to n|s own devices, struck her in some moments 
with such sudden indignation and pain, that she could no 
longer contain herself. He, who, might have been anything 
he pleased, to be nothing ! He, of whom everybody had pre- 
dicted such great things ! At such moments the sight of 
Walter smiling, strolling along with his hands in his pockets, 
excited her almost to frenzv. Poor lady ! So many women 
would have been proud of him— a handsome young fellow' 
in flannels, with nis cricket bat or his racquet when occa- 
sion served. But love and injured pride were bitter in her 
heart, and she could not bear the sight. All this while, 
however, nobody knew anything about the scenes that arose 
in the little house, which preserved a show of happiness and 
tender union long after the reality was gone. Indeed, 
even Miss Merivale, who had- unbounded bpportunities of 
knowing, took a long time to make up her mind that Walter 
and his mother did not “get on.” 

Such was the unfortunate state of affairs at the time 
when this history begins. The Methvens were distantly 
(!onnected, it was known, v/ith a great family in Scotland, 
w hich took no notice whatever of them, and indeed, had 
v»‘ry little reason so to do. Captain Methven being long since 
dead, and Ins widow and child entirely unknown to the 


8 


THE WIZARD'’ S SON. 


noble house, from which it was so great an honor to derive a 
little much-diluted, far-off drop of blood, more blue and more 
rich than the common. It is possible that had the connection 
been by Mrs. ^lethven’s side she would have known more 
about it, and taken more trouble to keep up her knowledge 
of the family. But it was not so, and she had even in her 
younger days been conscious of little slights and neglects 
which had made her rather hostile than otherwise to the 
great people from whom her husband came. “ I know noth- 
ing about the Erradeens,” she would say ; “ they are much too 
grand to take any notice of us ; and I am too proud to seek 
any notice from them.” 

“ I am afraid, my dear, there is a good deal in that,” said 
old Mrs. Wynn, the wife of the old rector, shaking her 
white head. This lady was a sort of benign embodiment 
of justice in Sloebury. She punished nobody, but she saw the 
right and wrong with a glance that was almost infallible, 
and shook her head though she never exacted any penalty. 

Here Miss Merivale would seize the occasion to strike 
in — 

“Prejudice is iirejudice,” she said, “whatever form it 
takes. A lord has just as much chance of being nice as an — 
apothecary.” This was said because the young doctor newly 
admitted into his father’s business, who thought no little of 
himself, was within reach, and just then caught Miss Meri- 
vale’s eye. 

“ That is a very safe speech, seeing there are neither 
lords nor apothecaries here,” he said with the blandest 
smile. He was not a man to be beaten at such a game. 

“ But a lord may have influence, you know. For Waiter’s 
sake I would not lose sight of him,” said Mrs. Wynn. 

“You cannot lose sight of what you have never seen: 
besides, influence is of no consequence n( wadays. Nobody 
can do anything for you— save yourself,” said Mrs. Methven 
with a little sigh. Her eyes turned involuntarily to where 
Walter was. He was always in the middle of everything 
that was going on. Among the Sloebiuy young people he 
had a little air of distinction, or so at least his mother 
thought. She was y^ainfully impartial, and generally, in her 
anxiety, perceived his bad i)oints rather than his good ones ; 
l)ut as she glanced at the group, love for once allowed itself 
to speak, though always with an accent peculiar to the char- 
acter of the thinker. She allowed to herself that he had an 
air of distinction, a something more than the others — alas, 
that nothing ever came of it ! The others, all, or almost all, 
were already launched in the world. They were doing or 
trying to do something — whereas Walter! But she took 
care that nobody should hear that irr^wessible sigh. 

“I am very sorry for it,” said Mrs. Wynn, “for there are 


THE WIZARD'S SOI^. 


9 

many people who would never push for themselves, and yet 
do very well indeed when they are put in the way.’^ 
uTi -1 pushing people,” said Miss Merivale. 

1 like the new state of affairs. When every one stands 
for himself, and you get just as much as you work for, there 
will be no grudges and sulkings with society. Though Ihn 
a lory, I like every man to make his own way.” 

“ A lady’s politics are never to he calculated upon.” said 
the Hector who was standing up against the fire on his own 
hearth, rubbing his old white hands. ”lt is altogether 
against the principles of Toryism, my dear lady, that a man 
should make his own way. It is sheer demccracy. As for 
that method of examinations, it is one of tlie most levelling 
principles of the time— it is one of Mr. Gladstone’s instru- 
® destruction of society. When the son of a 
cobbler is just as likely to come to high command as your 
son or mine, what is to become of the country? ’’the old 
clergyman said, lifting those thin white hands. 

Mr. Gladstone’s name was as a firebrand thrown into the 
midst of this peaceable little country community. The 
speakers all took fire. They thought that there was no 
doubt about what was going to come of the country. It was 
going to destruction as fast as fate could carry it. When 
society had dropped to pieces, and the rabble had come 
uppermost, and England had become a mere name, upon 
which all foreign nations should trample, and wild Irishmen 
dance war dances, and Americans expectorate, then Mr. 
Gladstone would be seen in his true colors. While this v as 
going on, old Mrs. Wynn sat in her easy-chair and shook her 
head. She declared always that she was no politician. And 
young Walter Methven, attracted by the sudden quicken- 
ing of the conversation which naturally attended the intro- 
duction of this subject, came forward, ready in the vein of 
opposition which was always his favorite attitude. 

“ Mr. Gladstone must be a very great man,” he said. “ I 
hear it is a sign of being in society when you foam at the 
mouth at the sound of his name.” 

“You young fellows think it fine to be on the popular 
side ; but wait till you are my age,” cried one of the eager 
speakers. “ It will not matter much to me. There will- be 
peace in my days.” “ But wait,” cried another, “ and see 
how you ^vill like it when everything topples down together, 
the crown and the state, and the aristocracy, and public 
credit, and national honor, and property and the constitu- 
tion, and ” 

So many anxious and alarmed politicians here spoke to- 
gether that the general voice became inarticulate, and Wal- 
ter Methven, representing the opposition, was at liberty to 
laugh. 

“ Come one, come all ! ” he cried, backed up by the arm 


TjJE WIZARD'S SO.' 


1 c: 


of the sofa, u])on which Mrs. Wynn sat shaking her head. 
“ It would be a fine thing for me and all the otlier proleta- 
rians. Something would surely fall our ^^'a\ 

His mother watoh(*d him, standing up against the sola, 
confronting them all, with her usual exasperated and angry 
atfection. She thought, as she looked at him, that there was 
jiothing he was not nt for. lie was clever enough for Parlia- 
imait; he might have been prime minister-^ut he was 
jiothing! nothing, and likely to be nothing, doing nothing, 
desiring nothing. Her eye fell on young Wynn, the rector V 
nephew, who had just got a fellowship at his college, and on 
the doctor’s son wlio was just entering into a share of his 
father’s prardice, and on Mr. Jeremy tlie young banker, whose 
attentions fluttered any maiden to whom he might address 
t liem. They were Walter’s contemporaries, and not one of 
them was worthy, she thought, to be seen by the side of her 
]>oy ; but they had all got before him in the race of life. They 
were something and he was nothing. It was not much won- 
der if her heart was sore and angry. AVhen she turned 
round to listen civilly to something that was said to her, her 
face was (contracted and pale. It was more than she could 
bear. She made a move to go away before any of the party 
was ready, and disturbed Miss Merivale in the midst of a 
tefe-<(-fete which was a thing not easily forgiven. 

Walter walked home with them in great good humor, but 
his mother knew very well that he was not coming in. He 
was going to finish the evening elsewhere. If he had come 
in would she have been able to restrain herself? Would 
she not have fallen upon him, either in anger or in grief, 
holding up to him the examples of young Wynn and young 
Jeremy and the little doctor ? She knew she would not have 
been able to refrain, and it was almost a relief to her, though 
it was another pang, when he turned away at the door. 

“ I want to speak to Underwood about to-morrow,” he 
said. 


“ What is there about to-morrow ? Of all the people in 
Skiebury Captain Underwood is the one I like least,” she 
said. “ Why must you always have something to say to him 
when every one else is going to bed ? ” 

“ I am not going to bed, nor is he,” said Walter lightly. 
Mrs. Methven’s nerves were highly strung. Miss Meri- 
vale had passed in before them, and there was nobody to 
witness this little struggle which she knew would end in 
nothing, but which was inevitable. She grasped him by the 
arm in her eagerness and pain. 

“Oh, my boy ! ” she said, “ come in, come in, and think of 
something more than the amusement of to-morrow. Life is 
not all play, though you seem to think so. For once listen 
to me, Walter— oh, listen to me! Ton cannot go on like 


THE WIZARD'S iiON. u 

this. Think of all the others ; all at work, every one of them 
and domg nothing.” 

“l)o you want me to begin to do something now,” said 
Walter, ‘‘when you have just told me everybody was going 
to bed?” 

“ Oh ! if I were you,” she cried in her excitement, “ I 
would rest neither night nor day. I Avould not let it be said 
that I was the last, and every one of them before me.” 

Walter shook himself free of her detaining hold. “ Am 
1 to be a dustman, or a scavenger, or— what?” he said, con- 
temptuously. “ I know no other trades that are followed at 
this hour.” 

Mrs. Methven had reached the point at which a woman 
has much ado not to cry in the sense of impotence and exas- 

S eration which such an argument brings. “ It is better to 
o anytliing than to do nothing,” she cried, turning away 
from him and hastening in at the open door. 

He paused a moment, as if doubtful what to do ; there 
was something in her hasty withdrawal which for an iri- 
tant disposed him to follow, and she paused breathless, with 
a kind of hope, in the half-light of the little hall ; but the 
next moment nis footsteps sounded clear and quick on the 
pavement, going away. iVIrs. Methven waited until they 
were almost out of hearing before she closed the door. 
Angry, baffled, helpless, what could she do? She wiped a 
hot tear from the corner of her eye before she went into the 
drawing-room, where her companion, always on the alert, 
had already turned up the light of the lamp, throwing an 
undesired illumination upon her face, flushea and troubled 
from this brief controversy. 

“ I thought you were never coming in,” said Miss Meri- 
vale, “ and that open door sends a draught all through the 
house.” 

“ Walter detained me for a moment to explain some 
arrangements he has to make for to-morrow,” Mrs. Methven 
said with dignity. “ He likes to keep me au coiirant of his 
proceedings. ’ 

Miss IVlerivale was absolutely 'silenced by this sublime 
assumption, notwithstanding the flush of resentment, the 
glimmer of moisture in the mother’s eye. 


CHAPTER II. 

Walter walked along the quiet, almost deserted street 
with a hasty step and a still nastier rush of disagreeable 
thoughts. There was, he felt, an advantage in being angry, 
in the sensation of indignant resistance to a petty t.vTanny. 
For a long time past he had taken refuge in this from every 


12 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


touch of conscience and sense of time lost and opportunities 
neglected. He was no genius, but he was not so dull as 
not to know that his life was an entirely unsatisfactory one, 
and himself in the wrong altogether ; everything rotten in 
the state of his existence, and a great deal that must be set 
right one time or another in all his habits and ways. The 
misfortune was that it was so much easier to put off this 
process till to-morrow than to begin it to-day. lie had never 
been roused out of the boyish condition of mind in which a 
certain resistance to authority was natural, and opposition 
to maternal rule and law a sort of proof of superiority and 
independence. Had this been put into words, and placed 
before him as the motive of much that he did, no one would 
have colored more angrily or resented more hotly the sug- 

f estioii ; and yet in the bottom of his heart he would have 
nown it to be true. All through his unoccupied days he 
carried with him the sense of folly, the consciousness that 
he could not justify to himself the course he was pursuing. 
The daily necessity of justifying it to another was almost 
the sole thing that silenced his conscience. His mother, 
who kept “ nagging ” day after day, who was never satisfied, 
whose appeals he sometimes thought theatrical, and her 
jiassion got up, was his sole defence against that self-dis- 
satisfaction which is the severest of all criticisms. If she 
would but let him alone, leave him to his own initiative, and 
not perpetually endeavor to force a change which to be^ 
effectual, as all authorities agreed, must come of itself ! He 
Avas quite conscious of the inadequacy of this argument, and 
in his heart felt that it was a poor thing to take advantage 
of it ; but yet, on the surface oi his mind, put it forward and 
made a bulwark of it against his own conscience. He did 
so now as he hurried along, in all the heat that follows a 
personal encounter. If she would but let him alone ! But 
he could not move a step anyAvhere, could not make an en- 
gagement, could not step into a friend’s rooms, as he was 
going to do now, without her interference. Tlie relations of 
a parent to an only child are not the same as those that 
exist between a father and mother and the different mem- 
bers of a large family. It has been usual to consider them 
in one particular light as implying the closest union and 
mutual devotion. But there is another point of view in 
which to consider the question. They are so near to each 
other, and the relationship so close, that there is a possibi- 
lity of opposition and contrariety more trving, more absorb- 
ing, than any other except that between husband and wife. 
A young son Hoes not always see the necessity of devotion 
to a mother who is not very old, who has still many sources 
of pleasure apart from himself, and who is not capable, 
perhaps, on her side, of the undiscriminating worship which 
is grandmotherly, and implies a certain weakness and dim- 


THE WIZARD^ S SOI^» 


^5 

ness of perception in the fond eyes that see everything in a 
rosy, ideal light. This fond delusion is often in its way a 
moral agent, obliging the object of it to fulfil what is ex- 
pected of him, and reward the full and perfect trust which 
IS given so unhesitatingly. But in this case it was not 
possible. The young man thought, or persuaded himself, 
that his mother’s vexatious watch over him^ and what he 
called her constant suspicion and doubt of him, had given 
him a reason for the disgust and impatience with which he 
turned from her control. He pictured to himself the 
difference which a father’s larger, more generous sway 
would have made in him ; to that he would have answered, 
he thought, like a ship to its helm, like an army to its gen- 
eral. But this petty rule, this perpetual fault-finding, 
raised up every faculty in opposition. Even when he meant 
the best, her words of warnmg, her reminders of duty, were 
enough to set him all wrong again. He thought, as a bad 
husband often thinks when he is conscious oi the world’s 
disapproval, that it was her complaints that were the cause. 
And when he was reminded by others, well-meaning but 
injudicious, of all he owed to his mother, his mind rose yet 
more strongly in opposition, his spirit refused the claim. 
This is a very different picture from that of the widow’s son 
whose earliest inspiration is his sense of duty to his mother, 
and adoring gratitude for her care and love— but it is perhaps 
as true a one. A young man may be placed in an unfair 
position by the excessive claim made upon his heart and 
conscience in this way, and so Walter felt it. He might 
have given all that, and more, if nothing had been asked of 
him ; but when he was expected to feel so much, he felt 
himself half justified in feeling nothing. Thus the situation 
had become one of strained and continual opposition. It was 
a kind of duel, in which the younger combatant at least— 
the assailed person, whose free-will and independence were 
hampered by such perpetual requirements— never yielded a 
step. The other might do so, by turns throwing up her arms 
altogether, but not he. 

It was with this feeling strong in his mind, and affecting 
liis temper as nothing else does to such a degree, that he * 
hastened along the street towards the rooms occupied by 
Captain Underwood, a personage whom the ladies of Sloe- 
bury were unanimous in disliking. Nobody knew exactly 
where it was that he got his military title. He did not 
belong to any regiment in her Majesty’s service. He had not 
even the humble claim of a militia officer ; yet nobody dared 
say that there was anything fictitious about him, or stigm- 
atize the Captain as an impostor. Other captains and co- 
lonels and men-at-arms of undoubted character supported 
his claims ; he belonged to one or two well-known clubs. 
An angry woman would sometimes lling an insult at him 


14 


THE WIZARD'^S SON. 


when her husband or son came home penniless after an 
evening in his company, wondering what they could see in 
an underbred fellow who was no more a captain (she would 
say in her wrath) than she was ; but of these assertions 
there was no proof, and the vehemence of them naturally 
made the Captain’s partisans more and more eager in his 
favor. He had not been above six months in Sloebury, but 
everybody knew him. There was scarcely an evening in 
which half-a-dozen men did not congregate in his rooms, 
drawn together by that strange attraction which makes 
people meet who do not care in the least for each other’s 
company, nor have anything to say to each other, yet are 
possibly less vacant in society than when alone, or find the 
murmur of many voices, the smoke of many cigars, exhil- 
arating and agreeable. It was not every evening that the 
cards were produced. The Captain was wary ; ne fright- 
ened nobody ; he did not wish to give occasion to the tre- 
mors of the ladies, whom he would have conciliated even, if 
he had been able ; but there are men against whom the 
instinct of all women rises, as there are women from whom 
all men turn. It was only now and then that he permitted 
play. He spoke indeed ' strongly against it on many oc- 
casions. “ What do you want with cards ? ” he would say. 
“ A good cigar and a fiiend to talk to ought to be enough 
for any man.” But twice or thrice in a week his scruples 
would give way. He was a tall, well-formed man, ot an 
uncertain age, with burning hazel eyes, and a scar on his 
forehead got in that mysterious service to which now and 
then he made allusion, and which his friends eoncluded 
must have been in some foreign legion, or Avith Garibaldi, 
or some other irregular warfare. Tlier^ Avere some who 
thought him a man, old for liis age, of thirty-five, and some 
who, concluding him young for his age and Avell preserved, 
credited him with twenty years more ; but thirty-five 
or fifty-five, whichever it was, he Avas erect and strong, and 
AveJl set up, and possessed an amount of experience and 
apparent knoAvledge of the Avoiid, at Avhich the striplings of 
•Sloebury admired and wondered, and whieh even the older 
men respected, as men in the country respect the mention of 
great names and incidents that have become historical. He 
had a AAjay of recommending himself even to the serious, 
and would now and then break forth, as if reluctantly, into 
some instance of faith or patience on the 
battleneld or the hospital which made even the rector 
declfU'e that to consider UnderAvood as an irreligious man 
Ava« both unjust and unkind. So strong was the prejudice 
of the women, however, that Mrs. Wynn, always charitable, 
ana v/hose silent protest was generally only made when the 
absent Avere blamed, shook her head al- this testimony borne 
in favor of tbp G^ipfaip, she had no son to be led a.Tvav. fi.Titt 


THK WIZAkDS SOK. 


her husband it need not be said, considering his position, 
was invulnerable ; but with all her charity she could not 
believe in the religion of Captain Underwood. His rooms 
were very nice rooms in the best street in Sloebury, and if 
his society was what is called mixed,” yet the best people 
were occasionally to be met there, as well as those who were 
not the best. 

There was a little stir in the company when Walter 
entered. To tell the truth, notwithstanding the wild mirth 
and dissipation which the ladies believed to go on in Captain 
Underwood’s rooms, the society assembled there was at the 
moment dull and in want of a sensation. There had not 
been anything said for the course of two minutes at least. 
There was no play going on, and the solemn puff of smoke 
from one pair of lips after another would have been the 
height of monotony, had it not been the wildest fun and 
gratification. The men in the room took pipes and cigars 
out of their mouths to welcome the new-comer. “ Hallo, 
Walter ! ” they all said in different tones ; for in Sloebury 
the use of Christian names was universal, everybody having 
known everybody else since the moment of their birth. 

“ Here comes Methven,” said the owner of the rooms (it 
was one of his charms, in the eyes of the younger men, that 
he was not adicted to this familiarity), “ in the odor of 
sanctity. It will do us all good to have an account of the 
rector’s party. How did you leave the old ladies, my excel- 
lent boy ? ” 

“ Stole away like the fox, by Jove,” said the hunting man, 
who was the pride of Sloebury. 

“ More like the mouse with the old cats after it,” said 
another wit. 

Now Walter had come in among them strong in his 
sense of right and in his sense of wrong, feeling himself at 
the same moment a sorry fool and an injured hero, a suffer- 
er for the rights of man.; and it would have been of great use 
to him in both these respects to have felt himself step into 
a superior atmosphere, into the heat of a political discus- 
sion, or even into noisy amusement, or the passion of play— 
an^hing which would rouse the spirits and energies, and 
show the action of a larger life. But to feel his own arrival 
a sort of godsend in the dulness, and to hear nothing but 
the heavy puff of all the smoke, and the very poor wit with 
which he was received, was sadly disconcerting, and made 
him more and more angry with himself and the circum- 
stances which would give him no sort of support or comfort. 

“ The old ladies,” he said. “ were rather more lively than 
you fellows. You look as if you had all been poisoned in 
your v/ine, like the men in the opera, and expected the wall 
to open and the monks and the coffins to come in.” 

I knew that Methven would bring us some excellent 


THE WIZARD'S SOEf. 

lessons,” said Captain Underwood. “ Remember that we 
all have to die. Think, my friends, upon your latter end.” 

“Jump up here and give us a sermon, Wat.” 

“Don’t tease him, h^s dangerous.” 

“ The old ladies have been too much for him.” 

This went on till Walter had settled down into his place, 
and lighted his pipe like the rest. He looked upon them 
with disenchanted eyes ; not that he had ever entertained 
any very exalted opinion of his company ; but to-night he 
was out of sympathy with all his surrounings, and he felt it 
almost a personal oiience that there should be so little to 
iittract and excite in this manly circle which thought so 
much more of itself than of any other, and were so scornful 
of the old ladies, who after all were not old ladies : but the 
graver members of the community in general, with an orna- 
mental adjunct of young womankind. On ordinary occa- 
sions no doubt Waiter would have chimed in with the rest, 
but to-night he was dissatisfied and miserable, not sure of 
any sensation in particular, but one of scorn and distaste 
for his surroundings. He would have felt this in almost 
any conceivable case, but in the midst of this poor jesting 
and would-be wit, the effect Avas doubled. Was it worth 
while for this to waste his time, to offend the opinion of all 
his friends ? Such thoughts must always come in similar 
circumstances. Even in the most brilliant revelry there 
will be a pause, a survey of the position, a sense, however 
unwilling that the game is not worth the candle. But here ! 
They were all as dull as ditch water, he said to himself. 
Separately there was scarcely one whom he would have se- 
lected as an agreeable companion, and was it possible by 
joining many dulnesses together to produce a brilliant re- 
sult ? There Avas no doubt that Walter’s judgment was 
jaundiced that eA^ening ; for he Avas not by any means so 
contemptuous of his friends on ordinary occasions; but he 
had been eager to find an excuse for himself, to be able to 
s^ that here Avas real life and genial society in i)lace of the 
affected solemnity of the proper people. When he found him- 
self unable to do this, he Avas struck as by a personal griev- 
ance, and sat moody and al^stracted, bringing a chill unon 
everybody, till one by one the boon companions strolled 
aAvay. 

A pretty set of felloAvs to talk of dulness,” he cried Avith 
a little burst, “ as if they were not dull beyond all descrip- 
tion themselves.” 

“ Come, Methven, you are out of temper,” said Captain 
TJnderwood. “ They are good fellows enough when you are 
in the vein for them. Something has put you out of 
joint.” 

“Nothing at all,” cried Walter, “except the sight of you 
all sitting as solemn as oavIs pretending to enjoy yourselves. 


The ivjzA'^j/s son. ,7 

At the rectory one yawned indeed, It was tlie genius of Uie 
place— but to hear all those dull dogs laughing at that, as if 
they were not a few degrees worse ! Is there nothing but 
didness in life? Is everything the same— one way or an- 
other— and nothing to show for it all, when it is over, but 
tediousness and discontent ?” 

Underwood looked at him keenly with his fiery eyes. 

“So you’ve come to that already, have you?’^’ he said. 
“ I thought you were too young and foolish.’^ 

“I am not so young as not to know that I am behaving 
like an idiot,” Walter said. Perhaps he had a little hope of 
being contradicted and brought back to his own esteem. 

But instead of this, Captain Underwood only looked at 
him again and laughed. 

“ I know,” he said ; “ the conscience has its tremors, 
especially after an evening at the rectory. You see how well 
respectability looks, how comfortable it is.” 

“ I do nothing of the sort,” Walter cried indignantly. “ I 
see how dull you are, you people who scoff at respectability, 
and I begin to wonder whether it is not better to be dull an(i 
thrive than to be dull and perish. They seem much the same 
thing so far as enjoyment goes.” 

“ You want excitement,” said the other, carelessly. “ I 
allow there is not much of that here.” 

“I want something,” cried Walter. “Cards even are 
better than nothing. 1 want to feel that I have blood in my 
veins.” 

“ My dear boy, all that is easily explained. You want 
money. Money is the thing that mounts the blood in the 
veins. With money you can have as much excitement, as 
much movement, as you like. Let people say what they 
please, there is nothing else that does it,” said the man of 
experience. He took a choice cigar leisurely from his case 
as he spoke. “A bit of a country town like this, what can 
you expect from it ? There is no go in them. They risk a 
shilling, and go away frightened if they lose. If they don’t 
^o to church on Sunday they feel all the remorse of a villahi 
in a play. It’s all petty here— everything’s petty, both the 
vices and the virtues. I don’t wonder you find it slow. 
What I find it, I needn’t say.” 

“Why do you stop here, then?” said Walter, not un- 
naturally, with a momentary stare of surprise. Then he 
resumed, being full of his own subject. “ I know I’m an 
ass,” he said. “ I loaf about here doing nothing when I ought 
to be at work. I don’t know why I do it ^ but neither do I 
know how to get out of it. YouAhat’s quite another thing. 
You have no call to stay. I wonder you do : why do you? 
If I were as free as you, I should be oft— before another 
day.” 


j8 The wizariTs son. 

“ Come along Uioii,” said Underwood, good-humoredly. 

" “ ril go if you’ll go.” 

At this Walter shook his head. 

I have no money, you know. I ought to be in an ofiice 
or doing something. I can’t go off to shoot here, or fish there, 
like you.” 

“By and by— by and by. You have time enough to 
wait.” 

Walter gave him a look of surprise. 

“ There is nothing to wait for,” he said. “ Is that why 
you have said so many things to me about seeing life ? I 
have nothing. We’ve got no money in the family. I may 
wait till doomsday, but it will do nothing for me. 

“Don’t be too sure of that,” said Undirwood. “Oh, you 
needn’t devour me Avith your eyes. I know nothing of your 
family affairs. I suppose of course that by and by, in the 
course of nature 

“ You mean,” said Walter, turning pale, “ when my mother 
dies. No, I’m not such a wretched cad as that : if I didn’t 
know I should get next to nothing then, I ” (His con- 

science nearly tripped this young man up, running into his 
way so hurriedly that he caught his foot unawares.) Then 
he stopped and "grew red, staring at his companion. “ Most 
of what she has dies with her, if that’s Avhat you’re thinking 
of. There is nothing in that to build upon. And I’m glad 
of it,” the young man cried. 

“ I beg your pardon, Methven,” said the other. “ But it 
needn’t be that ; there are other ways of getting rich.” 

“ I don’t know any of them, unless by w ork : and how am 
I to work ? It is so easy to speak. What can I work at ? and 
where am I to get it '?— there is the question. I hear enough 
on that subject— as if I were a tailor or a shoemaker that 
could find something to do at any corner. There is no reason 
in it,” the young man said, so liotly, and with such a flush 
of resentful obstinacy, that the fervor of his speech betrayed 
him. He was like a man who had outrun himself, and paused, 
out of breath. 

“You’ll see; something will turn up,” said UnderAvood, 
with a laugh. 

“ What can turn up .^—nothing. Suppose I go to New 
Zealand and come back at fifty with my fortune made — 
Fifty’s just the age, isn’t it, to begin to enjoy yourself,” cried 
Walter, scornfully ; “ Avhen you nave not a tooth left, nor a 
faculty perfect?” He Avas so young that the half-century 
appeared to him like the age of Methusaleh^ and men who 
lived to that period as ha\dng outlived all that is worth living 
for. His mentor laughed a little uneasily, as if he had been 
touched by this chance shot. 

“ It is not such a terrible age after all,” he said. “ A man 
can still enjoy himself Avhen he is fifty; but I grant youthati 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


19 


at twenty-four it’s a long time to wait for your pleasure. 
However, let us hope something will turn up before then. 
Supposing, for the sake of argument, you were to come in to 
your fortune more speedily, I wonder what you would do 
with it— eh ? you are such a terrible fellow for excitement. 
The turf ? ” 

“All that is folly,” said Walter, getting up abruptly. 
“Nothing more, thanks. I am coming in to no fortune. 
And you don’t understand me a bit,” he said, turning at the 
door of the room, to look back upon the scene where he had 
himself spent so many hours, made piquant by a sense of that 
wrongdomg which supplies excitement when other motives 
fail. The chairs standing about as their occupants had thrust 
them away from the table, the empty glasses upon it, the 
disorder 01 the room, struck him with a certain sense of 
disgust. It was a room intended by nature to be orderly and 
sober, with heavy country-town furniture, and nothing 
about it that could throw any grace on disarray. The master 
of the place stood against the table swaying a somewhat 
heavy figure over it, and gazing at the young man with his 
fiery eyes. Walter’s rudeness did not please hun, any more 
than his abrupt withdrawal. 

“ Don’t be too sure of that,” he said, with an effort to 
retain his good-humored aspect. “ If I don’t understand you, 
I should like to know who does ? and when that fortime 
comes, you will remember what I say.” 

“Pshaw!” Walter cried, impatiently turning away, A 
nod of his head was all the good-night he gave. He hurried 
down as he had hurried up, still as little contented, as full of 
dissatisfaction as when he came. This man who thought he 
understood him, who intended to influence him, revolted the 
young man’s uneasy sense of independence, as much as did 
the bond of more lawful authority. Did Underwood, too, 
think him a child not able to guide himself ? It was very 
late by this time, and the streets very silent. He walked 
quickly home through the wintry darkness of November, 
with a mind as thoroughly out of tune as it is possible to 
imagine. He had gone to Underwood’s in the hot impulse 
of opposition, with the hope of getting rid temporarily, at 
least, of the struggle within him ; but he had not got rid of 
it. The dull jokes of the assembled company had only made 
the raging of the inward storm more sensible, and the 
jaunty and presumptuous misconception with which his 
host received his involuntary confidences afterwards, had 
aggravated instead of soothing his mind. Indeed, Under- 
wood’s pretence at knowing all about it, his guesses and at- 
tempts to sound his companion’s mind, and the blundering 
interpretation of it into which he stumbled, filled Walter 
with double indignation and disgust. This man too he had 
thought much of, and expected superior intelligence from - 


20 


THE VVIZARHS SON. 


and all that he had to say was an idiotic anticipation of some 
miraculous coming into a fortune which Walter was aware 
was as likely to happen to the beggar on the streets as to 
himself. He had oeen angry with nature and his mother 
when he left her door ; he was angry with everybody when 
he returned to it, though his chief anger of all. and the root 
of all the others, was that anger with himself, which burnt 
within his veins, and which is the hardest of all others to 
quench out. 


) 

i 


CHAPTER HI. 


Walter was very late next morning as he had been very 
late at night. The ladies had breakfasted long before, and 
there was a look of reproach in the very tablecloth left there 
so much after the usual time, and scrupulously cleared of 
everything that the others had used, and arranged at one 
end, with the dish kept hot for him, and the small teapot 
just big enough for one, which was a sermon in itself. His 
mother was seated by the fire with her weekly books, which 
she was adding up. She said scarcely anything to him, ex- 
cept the morning greeting, filling out his tea mth a gravity 
which was all the more crushing that there was notning in 
it to object to, nothing to resent. Adding up accounts of 
itself is not cheerful work; but naturally the young man 
resented this seriousness all the more because he had no 
right to do so. It was intolerable, he felt, to sit and eat in 
presence of that silent figure partly turned away from him, 
jotting down tlie different amounts on a bit of paper, and 
absorbed in that occupation as if unconscious of his pre- 
sence. Even scolding was better than this ; Walter was per- 
fectly conscious of all it was in her power to say. He knew 
by heart her remonstrances and appeals. But he disliked 
the silence more than all. He longed to take her by the 
shoulders, and^ cry, “ What is it ? What have you got to 
say to me ? What do you mean by sitting there like a stone 
figure, and meaning it all the same ! ” He did not do this, 
knowing it would be foolish, and give his constant an- 
tagonist a certain advantage ; but lie longed to get rid of 
some of his own exasperation by such an act. It was with a 
kind of force over himself that he ate his breakfast, going 
through all the forms, prolonging it to the utmost of his 
power, helping himself with deliberate solemnity in defiance 
of the spectator, who seemed so absorbed in her own occupa- 
tion, but was, he felt sure, watching his every movement. 
U w r^ not, however, until he had come to an end of his pio- 
loiy:rfi meal and of his newspaper, that his mother spoke. 

Ho you think,” she said, “ that it would be possible for 


T//£ IFIZAA'D^S SOM 2i 

you to write that letter to Mr. Milnathort, of which I have 
spoken so often, to-day ? ” 

“Oh, quite possible,” said Walter, carelessly. 

‘ Will you do it then ? It seems to me very important to 
your interests. Will you really do it, and do it to-day ? ” 

^ “ I’ll see about it,” Walter said.' 

“ I don’t ask you to see about it. It is nothing very diffi- 
cult. I ask you to do it at once— to-day.” 

He gazed at her for a moment with an angry ob- 
stinacy. 

“ I see no particular occasion for all this haste. It has 
stood over a good many days. Why should you insist so 
upon it now ? 

“ Every day that it has been put off has been a mistake. 
It should have been done at once,” Mrs. Methven said. 

“ I’ll see about it,” he said, carelessly ; and he went out of 
the room with a sense of having exasperated her as usual, 
which was almost pleasant. 

At the bottom of his heart he meant to do what his 
mother had asked of him : but he would not betray his good 
intentions. He preferred to look hostile even when he was 
in the mind to be obedient. He went away to the little 
sitting-room wffiich was appropriated to him, where his pipes 
adorned the mantelpiece, and sat down to consider the 
situation. To write a letter was not a great thing to do, and 
he fully meant to do it; but after he had mused a little 
angrily upon the want of perception which made his mother 
adopt that cold and hectoring tone, when if she had asked 
him gently he would have done it in a minute, he put forth 
his hand and drew a book towards him. It was not either a 
new or an entertaining book, but it secured his idle atten- 
tion until he suddenly remembered that it was time to go 
f»ut. The letter was not written, but what did that matter V 
The post did not go out till the afternoon, and there was 
]denty of time between that time and this to write half-a- 
dozen letters. It would do very well, he thought, when he 
(;ame in for lunch. So he threw down the booK and got his 
hat and went out. 

Mrs. Methven, who was on the watch, hearing his every 
movement, came into his room after he was gone, and looked 
round with eager eyes to see if the letter was written^ if 
there was any trace of it. Perhaps he had taken it out with 
him to post it, she thought : and though it was injurious to 
her that she should not know something more about a piece 
of business in which he was not the sole person concerned, 
yet it gave her a sort of relief to think that so much at least 
he had done. She went back to her books with an easier 
mind. She was far from being a rich woman, but her son 
bad known none of her little difficulties, her efforts to make 


22 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


ends meet. She had thought it wrong to trouble his child- 
hood with such confidences, and he had grown up thinking 
nothing on the subject, without any particular knowledge 
of, or interest in, her affairs, taking everything tor granted. 
It was her own fault, she said to herself, and so it was to 
some extent. She would sometimes think that if she had it 
to do over again she would change all that. How often do 
"we think this, and with what bitter regret, in respect to the 
children whom people speak of as wax in our hands, till we 
. suddenly wake up and find them iron ! She had kept her 
difficulties out of Walter’s way, and instead of being grate- 
ful to her for so doing, he was simply indifferent, neither 
inquiring nor caring to know. Her own doing! It was 
easier to herself, yet bitter beyond telling, to acknowledge it 
to be so. Just at this time, when Christmas was approach- 
ing, the ends took a great deal of tugging and coaxing to 
bring them together. A few of Walter’s bills had come in 
unexpectedly, putting her poor balance altogether wrong. 
Miss Merivale contributed a little, but only a little, to the 
housekeeping ; for Mrs. Methven was both proud and 
liberal, and understood giving better than receiving. She 
went back to the dining-room, where all her books lay upon 
the table, near the fire. Her reckoning had not advanced 
much since she had begun it with Walter sitting at break- 
fast. Her faculties had been all absorbed in him and what he 
was doing. Now she addressed herself to her accounts with 
a strenuous effort. It is hard work to balance a small sum 
of money against a large number of bills, to settle how to di- 
vide it so as that ever^ody shall have something, and the 
mouths of hungry creditors be stopped. Perhaps we might 
say that this was one of the fine arts— so many pounds here, 
so many there, keeping credit afloat, and the wolf of 
the debt from the door. Mrs. Methven was skilled in it. 
She went to this work, feeling all its difficulty and burden : 
yet, with a little relief, not because she saw any way out of 
her difficulties, but because Walter had Avritteh that letter. 
It was always something done, she thought, in her simplicity, 
and something might come of it, some way in Avhich he could 
get the means of exercising his faculties, perhaps of distin- 
guishing himself even yet. 

Walter for his part strolled away through the little town 
in his usual easy way. It was a fine, bright, winterly morn- 
ing, not cold, yet cold enough to make brisk Avalking pleasant, 
and stir the blood in young veins. There Avas no football 
going on, nor any special amusement. He could not afford 
to hunt, and the only act ive winter exercise Avhich he could 
attain was limited to this game~of Avhich there was a gootl 
deal at Sloebury— and skating, when it pleased Providence 
to send ice, which AA^as too seldom. He looked in upon one or 
tAa) of cronies, and played a game of billiards, and hung 


THE WIZARDS S OH, 


^3 


about the ni|?b Street to see \Yliat was^^oiiigon. There was 
nothing particular going on, but the air was fresh, and the 
sun shining, and a little pleasant movement about, much 
more agreeable at least than sitting in a stuffy little room 
writing a troublesome letter which he felt sure would not do 
The least T?ood. Finally, he met Captain Underwood, who 
regarded him with a look which Walter would have called 
anxious had he been able to imagine any possible reason why 
Underwood should entertain any anxiety on his account. 

‘‘ Well ! any news ? ” the Captain cried. 

“News! What news should there be in this dead-alive 
place ? ” Walter said. 

The other looked at him keenly as if to see whether he 
was quite sincere, and then said. “ Come and have some 
lunch.” 

Tie was free of all the best resorts in Sloebury, this mys- 
terious man. He belonged to the club, he was greatly at his 
ease in the hotel— everythmg was open to him. Walter, who 
had but little money of his own, and could not quite cut the 
figure he wished, was not displeased to be thus exhibited as 
the captain’s foremost ally. 

“ I thought you might have come into that fortune, you 
are looking so spruce,’^ the captain said, and laughed. But 
though he laughed he kept an eye on the young man as if the 
pleasantry meant more than appeared. Walter felt a mo- 
mentory irritation with this, which seemed to him a very 
bad joke ; but he went with the captain all the same, not 
without a recollection of the table at home, at which, after 
waiting three quarters of an hour or so, and watching at the 
wuidpw for his coming, the ladies would at last sit down. 
But he was not a child to be forced to attendance at every 
meal, he said to himself. The captain’s attentions to him 
were great, and it was a very nice little meal that they had 
together. 

“ I expect you to do great things for me when you come 
into your fortune. You had better engage me at once as your 
guide, philosopher, and friend,” he said, with a laugh. “ Of 
course you will quit Sloebury, and make yourself free of all 
this bondage,” 

“Oh, of course,” said Walter, humoring the joke, though 
it was sa bad a one in every way. 

He could not quarrel with his host at his own table, and 
perhaps after all it was more dignified to take it with good 
humor. 

“ You must not go in for mere expense,” the captain said ; 
“ you must make it pay. I can put you up to a thing or two. 
You must not go into the Avorld like a pigeon to be plucked. 
It would affect my personal honor if a pupil of mine — for I 
consider you as a pupil of mine, Methyen, I think I have im- 


2 I THE WIZARD'S SOK\ 

parted to you a thing or two. You are not quite the simple- 
ton you used to be, do you think you are ? ” 

Walter received this with great gravity, though he tried 
to look as if he were not offended. 

Was I a simpleton ? ” he said. “I suppose in one’s own 
case one never sees.” 

“ W'^ere you a simpleton ! ” said the other, with a laugh, 
and then he stopped himself, always keenly watching the 
voung man’s face, and perceiving that he was going too far, 
But 1 flatter myself you could nold your own at whist with 
any man now,” the captain said. 

This pleased the young man; his gravity unbended a 
little ; there was a visible relaxation of the corners of his 
mouth. To be praised is always agreeable. Moral applause, 
indeed, may be taken with composure, but who could hear 
himself applauded for his whist-playing without an exhilarar 
tion of the neart ? He said, with satisfaction, “ I always was 
pretty good at games,” at which his instructor laughed again, 
almost too much for perfect good breeding. 

“ I like to have young fellows like you to deal with,” he 
said, “ fellows with a little spirit, that are born for better 
things. Your country-town young man is as fretful and 
frightened when he loses a few shillings as if it were thou- 
sands. But that’s one of the reasons why I feel you’re born 
to luck, my boy, 1 know a man of liberal breeding when- 
ever I see him, he is not frightened about a nothing. That’s 
one of the things I like in you, Methven. You deserve a for- 
tune, and you deserve to have me for your guide, philosopher, 
and friend.” 

All this was said by way of joke ; but it was strange to 
see the steady watch which he kept on the young man’s race. 
One would have said a person of importance wmom Under- 
wood meant to try his strength with, but guardedly, without 
going too far, and even on whom he was somehow dependent, 
anxious to make a good impression. Walter,' who knew his 
own favor to be absolutely without importance, and that 
Underwood above all, his host and frequent entertainer could 
be under no possible delusion on the subject, was puzzled, yet 
flattered, feeling that only some excellence on his own part, 
undiscovered by any of his other acquaintances, could ac- 
count for this. So experienced a person could have “no 
motive ” in thus paying court to a penniless and prospectless 
youth. W alter was perplexed, but he was grati fled too. He 
had not seen many of the captain’s kind ; nobody who knew 
so many people or who was so much at his ease with the 
world. Admiration of this vast acquaintance, and of the 
familiarity with which the captain treated things and x)eople 
of which others spoke with bated breath, had varied in his 
mind with a fluctuating sense that Underwood was not ex- 
actly so elevated a person as he professed to be, and even 


THE WIZAKHS SOH. 


25 

that there were occasional vulgarities in this man of the 
world. Walter felt these, but in his ignorance represented 
to himself that perhaps they were ri^it enough and only 
seemed vulgar to him who knew no better. And to-day 
there is no doubt he was somewhat intoxicated by this flat- 
tery. It must be disinterested, for what could he do for any- 
body ? He confided to the captain more than he had ever 
done before of his own position. He described how he was 
being urged to write to old Milnathort. “ He is an old law- 
yer in Scotland— what they call a writer— and it is supposed 
he might be induced to taxe me into his office, for the sake 
of old associations. I don’t know what the associations are, 
but the position does not smile upon me,” W alter said. 

“ Your family then is a Scotch family ? ” said the captain 
with a nod of approval. “ I thought as much.” 

“I don’t know that I’ve got a family,” said Walter. 

“ On the contrary, Methyen is a very good name. There 
are half a dozen baronets at least, and a peer — you must 
have heard of him. Lord Erradeen.” 

‘‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of him,” Walter said with a conscious 
look. 

If he had been more in the world he would have said, 
“ he is a cousin of mine,” l)ut he was aware that the strain 
of kindred was very far off, and he was at once too shy and 
too proud to claim it. His companion waited apparently 
for the disclosure, then, finding it did not come, opened the 
way. 

“ If he’s a relation of yours, it’s to him you ought to write ; 
very likely he would do something for you. They are a 
curious family. I’ve had occasion to know something about 
them.” 

“ I think you know everybody, Underwood.” 

“ Well, I have knocked about the world a great deal ; in 
that way one comes across a great many people. I saw a 
good deal of the present lord at one time. lie was a very- 
queer man — they are all queer. If you are one of them you’fl 
have to bear your share in it. There is a mysterious house 
they have — You would think I was an idiot if I told you 
halt the stories I have heard ” 

“ About the Erradeens ? ” 

“ About everybody,” said the captain evasively. “ There 
is scarcely a family, that, if you go right into it, has not 
something curious about them. We all have ; but those that 
last and continue keep it on record. 1 could tell you the 
wildest tales about So-and-so and So-and-so, very ordinary 
people to look at, but with stories that would make your 
Iiair stand on end.” 

“ We have nothing to do with things of that sort. My 
people have always been straightforward and above board.” 

For as much as you know, perhaps ; but go back three 


26 


rilE W/ZARD*S SON. 


or four generations and how can you teli? We have all of 
us ancestors that perhaps were not much to bra^ of.” 

Walter caught Underwood’s eye as he said this, and 
perhaps there was a twinkle in it, for he laughed. 

“ It is something,” he said, “ to have ancestors at all.” 

“ If they were the greatest blackguards in the world,” 
the captain said with a responsive laugh, “that’s what I 
think. You don’t want any more of my revelations ? Well, 
never mind,'<t)robably I shall have you coming to me some 
of these days quite humbly to beg for more information. 
You are not cut out for an attorney^ office. It is very virtu- 
ous, of course, to give yourself up to work and turn your 
back upon life.” 

“Virtue be hanged,” said Walter, with some excitement 
“ it is not virtue, but necessity, which I take to be the very 
opposite. I know I’m wasting my time, but I mean to turn 
over a new leaf. And as the first evidence of that as soon 
as I go home I shall write to old Milnathort.” 

“Not to-day,” said Underwood, looking at his watch; 
“ the post has gone ; twenty-four hours more to think about 
it will do you no harm.” 

Walter started to his feet, and it was with a real pang 
that he saw how the opportunity had escaped him, and his 
intention in spite of himself been balked ; a flush of shame 
came over his face. He felt that, if never before, here was a 
genuine occasion for blame. To be sure, the same thing 
had happened often enough before, but he had never per- 
haps -so fully intended to do what was required of him. He 
sat down again with a muttered curse at himself and his 
own folly. There was nothing to be said for him. He had 
meant to turn over a new leaf, and yet this day was just like 
the last. The thought made his heart sick for the moment. 
But what was the use of making a fuss and betraying him- 
self to a stranger ? He sat down again, with ,a self-disgust 
which made him glad to escape from his own company. 
Underwood’s talk might be shallow enough, perhaps his 
pretence at knowledge was not very well founded, but 
Avas safer company than conscience, and that burning and 
miserable sense of moral impotence which is almost worse 
than the more tragic stings of conscience. To And out that 
your resolution is worth nothing, after you have put your- 
self to the trouble of making it, and that habit is more 
strong than any motive, is not a pleasant thing to think of. 
Better let the captain talk about Lord Erradeen, or any 
other lord in the peerage. Underwood, being encouraged 
by a few questions, talked very largely on this subject. 
He gave the young man many pieces of information, which 
indeed he could not have,. got in Debrett if he had been anx- 
ious on the subject; and as the afternoon Avore on they strol- 
led out again for another promenade up and doAVn the moi'c 


TIIR WIZARDS SON. 2 ^ 

populous parts of Sloebuiy, and there fell m with other 
idlers like themselves ; and when the twilight yielded to the 
more cheerful light of the lamps, betooK themselves to 
whist, which was sometimes played in the captain’s rooms 
at that immoral hour. Sloebury, even the most advanced 
portion of it, had been horrified at the thought of whist be- 
tore dinner when the captain first suggested it, but that in- 
nocent alarm had long since melted away. There was noth- 
ing dangerous about it, no stakes which any oue could be 
hurt by losing. When Walter, warned by the breaking up 
of the party that it was the hour for dinner, took his way 
home also, he was the winner of a sixpence or two, and no 
more : there had been nothing wrong in the play. But 
when he turned the corner of Underwood’s street and found 
himself with the wind in his face on his way home, the re- 
vulsion of feeling from something like gayety to a rush of 
tdisagreeable anticipations, a crowd of uncomfortable 
thoughts, was pitiful. In spite of all our boastings of home 
and home influence, how many experience this change the 
moment they turn their face in the direction of that centre 
where it is conventional to suppose all comfort and shelter 
is! There is a chill, an abandonment of pleasant sensations, 
a preparation for those that are not pleasant. Walter fore- 
saw what he would find there with an impatience and re- 
sentment which were almost intolerable. Behind the cur- 
tain, between the laths of the Venetian blind, his mother 
would be secretly on the outlook watching for his return ; 
perhaps even she had stolen quietly to the door, and, shel- 
tered in the darkness of the porch, was looking out ; or, if 
not that, the maid who opened the door would look re- 
proachfully at him, and ask if he was going to dress, or if 
she might serve the dinner at once : it must have been wait- 
ing already nearly half an hour. He went on very quickly, 
but his thoughts lingered and struggled with the strong dis- 
inclination tnat possessed him. How much he would have 
given not to go home at all ! how^ little pleasure he expected 
when he got there ! His mother most likely would be silent, 
pale with anger, saying little, wiiile Cousin Sophia wouh] 
get up a little conversation. She w^ould talk lightly about 
anything that might have been happening, and Walter w ould 
perhaps exert himself to give Sophia hack her owm, and 
show his mother that he cared nothing about her displeas- 
ure. And then w^hen dinner was over, he would hurry out 
again, glad to be released. Home! this w^as what it had 
come to be : and nothing could mend it so far as either 
mother or son could see. Oh, terrible inconmcl*bibility, un- 
approachableness of one soul to another ! To think that 
they should be so near, yet so far away. Even in the case 
of husband and wife the severance is scarcely so terrible j; 
for they have come towards each other out of different 


28 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


spheres, and if they do not amalgamate there are many 
secondary causes that may be blamed, diner ences of nature 
and training and thought. But a mother with her child, 
whom she has brought up, whose first opinions she has im- 
planted, who ought naturally to be influenced by her ways 
of thinking, and even by prejudices and superstitions of her 
way ! It was not, however, this view of the question which 
moved the young man. It was the fact of his own bondage, 
the compulsion lie was under to return to dinner, to give 
some partial obedience to the rules of the house, and to 
confess that he had not written that letter to Mr. Milna- 
thort. 

When he came in sight of the house, however, he became 
aware insensibly, he could scarcely tell how, of some change 
in its aspect; what was it ? It was lighted up in the most 
unusual way. The window of the spare room was shining 
not only with candlelight, but with firelight, his own room 
was lighted up ; the door was standing open, thro whig out a 
warm flood of light into the street, and in the centre of this 
light stood Mrs. Methven with her white shawl over her head, 
not at all concealing herself, gazing anxiously in the direction 
from which he was coming. 

“ I think I will send for him,” he heard her say ; “ he has, 
very likely, stepped into Captain Underwood’s and he is apt 
to meet friends there who will not let him go.” 

Her voice was soft — there was no blame in it, though she 
was anxious. She was speaking to some one behind ner, a 
figure in a greatcoat. Walter was in the shadow and invisible. 
He paused in his surprise to listen. 

“I must get away by the last train,” he heard the voice 
of the muffled figure say somewhat pettishly. 

“ Oh, there is plenty of time for that,” cried his mother ; 
and then she gave a little cry of pleasure, and said, “ And at 
a good moment, here he is ! ’ 

Tie came in somewhat dazzled, and much ^istc -.aed, into 
the strong light in the open doorway. Mrs. Met. .ven’s coun- 
tenance \v^as all radiant and glowing with pleasure. She held 
\ out her hand to him eagerly. 

“We have been looking for you,” she cried; “ I have had 
a great surprise. Walter, this is Mr. Milnathort.” 

Puzzled, startled, and yet somewhat disappointed, Walter 
paused in the hall, and looked at a tall old man with a face 
full of crochets and intelligence, who stood with two great- 
coats unbuttoned, and a comforter half unwound from his 
throat, und^r the lamp. His features were liigh and thin, 
his^eyes invisible under their deep sockets. 

“ Kow, you will surely take off your coat, and consent to 
go upstairs,^ and make yourself comfortable,” said Mrs. 
Methven, with a thrill of excitement in her voice. “ This is 

alter. He has heard of yoti all his life. Without any refi 


THE WIZARHS SOH. 


ereiice to the nature of your communication, he must be 
glad, indeed, to make your acquaintance-- — ” 

She gave AVal ter a look of appeal as she spoke. He was 
so much surprised that it was with difficulty he found self- 
possession to murmur a few words of civility. A feeling that 
Mr. Milnathort must have come to look after that letter 
which had never been written came in with the most wonder- 
fully confusing, half-ludicrous effect into his mind, like one 
of the inadequate motives and ineffable conclusions of a 
dream. Mr. Milnathort made a stiff little bow in reply. 

I will remain till the last train. In the meantime the 
young gentleman had better be informed, Mrs. Methven.” 

She put out her hands again. “ A moment— give us a 
moment first.” 

The old lawyer stood still and looked from the mother to 
the son. Perhaps to his keen eyes it was revealed that it 
would be well she should have the advantage of any pleasant 
revelation. 

“ I will,” he said, “ madam, avail myself of your kind 
offer to go upstairs and unroll myself out of these trappings 
of a long journey ; and in the meantime vou will, perhaps, 
like to tell him the news yourself : he will like it all tne 
better if he hears it from his mother.” 

Mrs. Methven bowed her head, having, apparently no 
words at her command : and stood looking after him till he 
disappeared on the stairs, following the maid, who had 
been waiting with a candle lighted in her hand. When he 
was gone, she seized Walter hurriedly by the arm, and 
drew him towards tlie little room, the nearest, which was 
his ordinary sitting-room. Her hand grasped him with un- 
necessary force in her excitement. The room was dark — he 
could not see her face, the only light in it being the reflection 
of the lamp outside. 

“ Oh, ^Walter ! ” she cried ; “ oh, my boy ! I don’t know 
how to teii^u the news. This useless life is all over for 
you, and another— oh, how different — another— God grant it 
happy and great, oh, God grant it ! blessed and noble !— ” 

Her voice choked with excitement and fast-coming tears. 
She drew him towards her into her arms. 

“ It will take you from me — but what of that, if it makes 
you happy and good ? I have been no guide to you, but God 
will be your guide : His leadings were all dark to me, but 
now I see ” 

“ Mother,” he cried, with a strange impulse he could not 
understand, putting his arm round her, “ I did not write that 
letter : I have done nothing I promised or meant to do. I am 
sick to the heart to think what a fool and a cad I am — for 
the love of God tell me what it is ! ” 


3 ^ 


THE WrZARjy'S sox. 


CHAPTER IV. 

All Sloebury was aware next morning that something of 
the most extraordinary character had happened to young 
Walter Methven. The rumor oven reached the club on the 
same evenmg. First the report was that he had got a valu- 
able appointment, at which the gentlemen shook their heads ; 
next that he had come into a fortune ; they laughed with 
one accord at this. Then, as upon a sudden gale of wind, 
there blew into the smoking-room, then full of tobacco, 
newspapers, and men, a wliisper which made everybody turn 
pale. This was one reason, if not the chieh why that evening 
was one of the shortest ever known at the club, which did 
not indeed generally keep very late hours, but still was oc- 
cupied by its habitues till ten or eleven o’clock when the 
serious members would go away, leaving only the boys, who 
never could have enough of it. But on that evening even 
the young men cleared off about ten or so. They wanted to 
know what it meant. Some of them went round to Captain 
Underwood’s, where W alter was so often to be found, with a 
confidence that at least Underwood would know ; the more 
respectable members of society went home to their families 
to spread the news, and half a dozen mothers at least Avent 
to bed that night with a disagreeable recollection that they 
liad mdividually and deliberately “ broken off ” an incipient 
flirtation or more, in which Walter had been one of the par- 
ties concerned. But the hopeful ones said to themselves 
“ Lizzie has but to hold up her little finger to bring him 
back.” This Avas before the whole Avas known. The young 
men who had hurried to Captain Under Avood’s AA^ere received 
by that gentleman with an air of importance and of kiiOAving 
more than he Avould tell, AA^hich impressed their imaginations 
deeply. He allowed that he had always knoAvn that there 
Avas a great deal of property, and perhaps a title concerned, 
but declared that he was not at liberty to say any more. Thus 
the minds of all were prepared for a great revelation ; and it 
is safe to say that from one end of Sloebury to the other 
Walter’s name Avas in everybody’s mouth. It had been 
alAvays believed that the Metfivens were people of good con- 
nections, and of late years it has been whispered by the 
benevolent as a reason for Walter’s inaction that he had 
grand relations aaLo at the proper moment Avould certainly 
interfere and set everything right for him. Others, however, 
were strenuous in their denial and ridicule of this, asking, 
was his mother a woman to conceal any advantages she had ? 
—for they did not understand the kind of pride in which 
Mrs. Metnven was so strong. And then it was clear that not 


THE WIZARiys SON 


3i 

only did the o-rand relations do nothing for Walter, but he 
did not even have an invitation from them, and went from 
home only when his mother went to the seaside. Thus 
there was great doubt and wonder, and in some quarters an 
inclination to treat the rumor as a canard, and to postpone 
belief. At the same time everybody believed it, more or less, 
at the bottom of their hearts, feeling that a thing so impos- 
sible must be true. 

But when it burst fully upon the world next morning 
along with the pale November daylight, but much more 
startling^ that W alter Methven had succeeded as the next 
heir to his distant cousin, who was the head of the family, 
and was now Lord Erradeen, a great potentate, with castles . 
in the Highlands and fat lands further south, and moots and 
deer forests and everything that heart of man could think 
of, the town, was swept not only by a thrill of \toncler, but 
of emotion. Nobody was indifferent to this extraordinary 
romance. Some, when they had got over the first bewilder- 
ment, received it with delignful anticipations, 4s if the good 
fortune which had befallen Walter was in some respects 
good fortune also for themselves; whereas many others were 
almost angry at this sudden elevation over their heads of 
one who certainly did not deserve any better, if indeed half 
so well as they did. But nobody was indinerent. It was 
the greatest excitement that had visited Sloe bury for years 
— even it might be said for generations. Lord i^rradeen ! it 
took away everybody’s breath. 

Among the circle of Walter’s more intimate acquaint- 
ance, the impression made was still deeper, as may be sup- 
posed. The commotion in the mind of the rector, who in- 
deed was old enough to have taken it with more placidity, 
was such that he hurried in from morning service without 
taking off his cassock. He was a good Churchman, but not | 
so far gone as to walk about the world in that ecclesiastical ^ 
garment. 

“ Can you imagine what;’has happened ? ” he said, burst- 
ing in upon Mrs. Wynn, who was delicate and did not go to 
church in the winter mornings. “ Young Walter Methven, 
that you all made such a talk about ” 

This was unfair, because she had never made any talk- 
being a woman who did not talk save most sparingly. She ^ 
was tempted for a moment to forestall him by telling him 
she already knew, but her heart failed her, and she only 
shook her head a little in protest against this calumny, and 
waited smilingly for what he had to say. She could not take 
away from him the pleasure of telling this wonderful piece 
of news. 

“AYhy, it was only the night beforeOast he was here— 
most of us rather disapproving of him, poor boy,” said the 
rector. ‘‘ Well, Lydia, that young fellow that was a good 


32 


THE WJZARD'^S SON. 


for nothing, you know— doing nothing^ never exerting him- 
self : well, my dear ! the most extraordinary thing has hap- 
pened— the most wonderful piece of good fortune ” 

“Don’t keep me on tenterhooks, Julius; 1 have heard 
some buzzing of talk already.” 

_ “I should think you had ! the town is full of it ; they tell 
me that everybody you meet on the streets— Lydia ! ” said 
the rector with solemnity, drawing close to her to make his 
announcement more imposing— “ that boy is no longer sim- 
ple Mr. Walter Methven. He is Lord Erradeen ” 

“ Lord what ? ” cried the old lady. It was part of her 
character to be a little deaf, or rather hard of hearing, which 
is the prettier way of stating the fact. It was supposed by 
some tnat this was one of the reasons why, when any one 
was blamed, she always shook her head. 

“ Lord Er-ra-deen ; but bless me, it is not the name that is 
so wonderful, it is the fact. Lord Erradeen— a great person- 
age — a man of importance. You don’t show any surprise, 
Lydia ! and yet it is the most astonishing incident without 
comparison that has happened in the parish these hundred 
years.” 

“I wonder what his mother is thinking,” Mrs. Wynn 
said. 

“ If her head is turned nobody could be surprised. Of 
cpurse, like every other mother, she thinks her son worthy 
of every exaltation.” 

“ I wish she was of that sort,” the old lady said. 

“Every woman is of that sort,” said the rector, with 
hasty dogmatism ; “ and, in one way, T am rather sorry, for 
it will make her feel she was perfectly right in encouraging 
mm, and that Avould be such a terrible example for others, 
riie young men will all take to idling ” 

“ But it is not the idling, but the fact that there is a neer- 
age m the family ” ^ 

cried the rector, who was not lucid, 
that boys or women either will reason back so far as that. 
It will be a bad exmnple : and, in the meantime, it is a most 
astonishing fact. But you don’t seem in the least excited. 

I thought you would have jumped out of your chair — out of 
yhe body almost.” 

“I am too rheumatic for that,” said Mrs. Wyim, with a 
STlady sahi ^ "'*** come and tell me,” the 

“ I should think she does not know whether she is on her 
head or her heels,” cried the rector ; “ I don’t feel very sure 
myself And Walter ! What a change, to be sure, for that 
boy ! 1 hope he will make a good use of it. I hope he wilt 
not dartoff with Underwood and such fellows and make a 
fool of himself. Mind, I don’t mean that I think so badlv of 
Underwood, he added after a moment, for this was a sub. 


The WIZARHS SON. 


33 

ject on which, being mollified as previously mentioned, the 
rector took the male side of the question. Mrs. Wynn re- 
ceived the protest in perfect silence, not even shaking her 
head. 

“ But if he took a fancy for horses or that sort of thing,” 
Mr. Wynn added, with a moment’s hesitation: then he 
brightened up again — of course it is better that lie should 
know somebody who has a little experience in any case ; and 
you will perceive, my dear, there is a great difference be- 
tween a penniless youth like Walter Methven getting such 
notions in his lead which lead only to ruin, and young Lord 
Erradeen dabbling a litt.e in amusements which, after all, 
have no harm in them if not carried too far, and are natural 
in his rank— but you women are always prejudiced on such 
a point.” 

“ I did not say anything, my dear,” the old lady said. 

“ Oh, no, you don’t say anything.” cried the rector, fret- 
fully, “ but I see it in every line of your shaAvl and every 
f ‘ ill of your cap. You are ,ust stiff with prejudice so far as 
Underwood is concerned, who really is not all a bad fellow 
when you come to know him, and is always respectful to re- 
ligion, and shows a right feeling— but one might as well 
try to fly as to convince you when you have taken a preju- 
dice.” 

Mrs. Wymi made no protest against this. She said only 
“ It is a great ordeal for a boy to pass through. I wonder if 
his mother ” And here she paused, not having yet, per- 

haps, formulated into words the thoughts that arose in her 
heart. 

“ It is to be hoped that she will let him alone,” the rector 
said ; “ she has indulged him in everything hitherto ; but 
just now,Avhen he is far better left to himself, no doubt she 
will be wanting to interfere.” 

“ Do yon think she has indulged him in everything ? ” said 
the old lady ; but she did not think it necessary to accuse 
her husband of prejudice. Perhaps he understood Captain 
Underwood as much better as she understood Mrs. Metlr 
ven ; so she said nothing more. She was the only individual 
in Sloebury who had any notion of the struggle in which 
Walter’s mother had wrecked so much of her own peace. 

“ There cannot be any two opinions on that subject,” said 
the rector. “ Poor lad ! You will excuse me, my dear, but 
I am always sorry for a boy left to a woman’s training. He 
is either a mere milksop or ne’er-do-well. Walter is not a 
milksop, and here has Providence stepped in, in the most 
wonderful way, to save him from being the other ; hut that^ 
is no virtue of hers. You will stand up, of course, for your 
own side.” 

The old lady smiled and shook her head. “ Ithink every 


34 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


child is the better for having both its parents, Julius, if that 
is what you mean.” 

This was not exactly what he meant, but it took the wind 
out of the rector’s sails. “ Yes, it is an ordeal for him,” he 
said, ‘‘ but, I am sure, if my advice can do him any good, it 
is at his service ; and, though I have been out of the way of 
many things for some time, yet I daresay the world is very 
mucn what it was, and I used to know it well enough.” 

“He will ask for nobody’s advice,” said Mrs. Wynn. 
Which makes it all the more desirable he should have 
it,” cried the rector ; and then he said, “ Bless me ! I have 
got my cassock on still. Tell John to take it down to the 
vestry— though, by the way, there is a button off, and you 
might as well have it put on for me, as it is here.” 

Mrs. Wynn executed the necessary repair of the cassock 
with her own hands. Though she was rheumatic, and did 
not care to leave her chair oftener than was necessary, she 
had still the use of her hands, and she had a respect for all 
the accessories of the clerical profession. She was sitting 
examining the garment to see if any other feeblenesses were 
apparent, in which a stitch in time might save after labors, 
when, with a little eager tap at the door, another visitor came 
in. This was a young lady of three or four and twenty, with 
a good deal of the beauty which consists in fresh complexion 
and pleasant color. Her hair was light brown, warm in 
tone ; her eyes }vere brown and sparkling ; her cheeks and 
lips bloomed with health. She had a pretty figure, full of 
life and energy— everything, in short, that is necessary to 
make up a pretty girl, without any real loveliness or deeper 
grace. She came in quickly, brimming over, as was evident, 
with something which burst forth as soon as she had given 
T • hasty conventional kiss of greeting, and 

which, as a matter of course, turned out to be the news of 
which Sloebury was full. 

u anything so wonderful ? ” she said. 

W after Methven, that nobody thought anything of — and 
now he is turned into a live lord ! a real peer of parliament ! 
they say. I thought mamma would have fainted when she 
heard it.” 

“ Why should your mamma faint when she heard of it, 

• It is very pleasant news.” 

P h 4^nt Lydia ! don’t you know why ? I am so angry ; 
1 leel as if I should never speak to her again. Don’t you 
rem^iber ? And I always thought you had some hand in 
It. Oh, you sit there and look so innocent, but that is 
because you are so deep.” 

u ^ deep ? ” the old lady asked, with a smile. 

\ ou are the deepest person I ever knew : you see through 
us all, and you just throw in a word ; and then, when peo- 
ple act upon it, you look so surprised. I heard you myself 


THE WIZARHS SON, 


35 

remark to mamma how often Walter Methven was at our 
house.” 

“Yes, 1 think I did remark it,” Mrs. Wynn said. 

“ And wdiat was the harm ? He liked to come, and he 
liked me ; and I hope you don’t think I am the sort of pei - 
son to forget myself and think too much about a man.” 

“ I thought you were letting him be seen with you too 
often, July, that is true.” 

“ You thought it might keep others off that were more 
eligible? Well, that is what I supposed you meant, for 1 
never like to take a bad view. But, you see, there was 
nobody that was eligible; and here has he turned, all at 
once, into the very best match within a hundred miles. If 
mamma had only let things alone, what prospects might be 
opening upon me now ! ” 

“ Half a dozen girls, I am afraid, may say just the same,” 
said Mrs. Wynn. 

“Well, what does that matter? He had nothing else to 
do. When a young man has nothing to do he must be mak- 
ing up to somebody. I don’t blame him a bit ; that is what 
makes us girls always ready for a flirtation. Time hangs so 
heavy on our hands. And only think. Aunt Lydia, if things 
had been allowed to go on (and I could always have thrown 
him off* if anything better turned up) only think what might 
have happened to me now. I might be working a coronet 
in all my new handkerchiefs,” cried the girl : “ oidy imagine ! 
oh, oh, oh ! ” 

And she pretended to cry ; but there was a sparkle of 
nervous energy all the same in her eyes, as if she were eager 
for the chase, and scarcely able to restrain her impatience. 
Mrs. Wynn shook her head at her visitor with a smile. 

“ You are not so worldly as you give yourself out to be,” 
she said. 

“Oh, that just shows how little you know. I am as 
worldly as ever woman was. I think of nothing but how to 
establish myself, and have plenty of money. We want it 
so ! Oh, I know you are very good to us— both my uncle 
and you ; but mamma is extravagant, and I am extravagant, 
and naturally all that anybody thinks of is to have what is 
necessary and decent for us. We have to put up with it, 
but I hate what is necessary and decent. I should like to go 
in satin and lace to-day even if I knew I should be in rags to- 
morrow ; and to think if you had not interfered that I might 
have blazed in diamonds, and gone to court, and done every- 
thing T want to do ! I could strangle you, Aunt L 5 ^dia, and 
mamma too ! ” Upon which Miss July (or Julee, which was 
how her name was pronounced) gave Mrs. Wynn a sudden 
kiss and took the cassock out of her hands. “ If it wants 
any mending I will do it,” she said ; “ it will just give me a 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


36 

little consolation for the moment. And you mil have time 
to think and answer this question. Is it too late now? ” 

“ July, dear, it hurts me to hear you talk so— you are not 
so wild as you take credit for being.^’ 

“ I am not wild at all, Amit Lydia,” said the girl, appro- 
})riating Mrs. Wynn’s implements, putting on her tliimble, 
threading her needle, and disco verm«’ at one glance the little 
rent in the cassock which the old lady had been searching 
for in vain, “ except with indignation to think what I hiive 
lost— if I have lost it. It is all very well to speak, but what 
is a poor girl to do? Yes, I know, to make just enough to 
Uve on by teaching, or something of that sort; but that is 
not what I want. 1 want to be well off. I am so extrava- 
gant, and so is mamma. We keep ourselves down, we don’t 
spend money : but we hate it so ! I would go through a 
great many disagreeables if I could only have enough to 
spend.” 

“And is Walter one of the disagreeables you would go 
through ? ” 

“Well, no; I could put up with him veiw well. He is 
not at all unpleasant. I don’t want him, but I could do with 
him. Do you really think it is too late? Don’t you think 
mamma might call upon Mrs. Methven and say how delight- 
ed we are ; and just say to him, you know, in a playful way 
(mamma could manage that very well), ‘We cannot hope to 
see you now in our little house. Lord Erradeen ! ’ and then 
of course he Avould be ijiqued (for he’s very generous), and 
say, ‘Why?’ And mamma would say, ‘Oh, we are such 
poor little people, and you are now a great man.’ Upon 
which, as sure as fate, he would be at the Cottage the same 
evening. And then!*” — July threw back her head, and ex- 
panded her brown eyes with a conscious poAver and sense of 
capability, as who should say — Then it Avould be in my own 
hands.— Don’t you think that’s very good for a plan ? ” she 
added, subsiding quickly to the work, which she executed 
as one to the manner born. 

“ I don’t thmk anything of it as a plan— and neither do 
you ; and your mother Avould not do it, July,” the old lady 
said. 

“Ah,” said July, throAving back her head, “there you 
luiA^e hit the blot' Aunt Lydia. Mamma Avouldn’t do it! 
She could, you knoAV, When she likes she is the completest 
humbug ! — but not alAvays. And she has so many notions 
about propriety, and Avhat is Avomanly, and so forth — just 
like you. Poor Avomen have no business Avith such luxuries. 
I tell her Ave must be of our time, and all that sort of thing ; 
but she Avon’t see it. No, I am afraid that is just the diM- 
culty. It all depends on mamma — and mamma Avon’t. 
Weil, it is a little satisfaction to have had it all out Avitli 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


37 

you. If you had not interfered, you two, and stopped the 
poor boy coming ” 

At tnis juncture eJohn threw open the door, and with a 
voice which he reserved for the great county ladies, an- 
nounced “ Mrs. Methven.” John had heard the great news 
too. 

“—Stopped the poor boy coming,” July said. The words 
were but half out of her mouth when John opened the door, 
and it Avas next to impossible that the new visitor had not 
heard them. A burning blush covered the girl’s face. She 
sin^ang to her feet with the cassock in her arms, and gazed 
at the new comer. Mrs. Methven for the first moment did 
not notice this third person. She came in with the content 
and self-absorption of one who has a great wonder to tell. 
The little world of Sloebury and all its incidents were as 
nothing to her. She went up to old Mrs. Wynn with a 
noiseless swiftness. 

“ I have come to tell you great news,” she said. 

“ Let me look at you^*^’ said the old lady. “ I have heard, 
and I scarcely could believe it. Then it is all true ? ” 

“ I am sorry I was not the first to tell you. I think such 
a thing must get into the air. Nobody went out from my 
house last night, and yet everybody knows. I saw even the 
people in the street looking at me as I came along. Mrs. 
VVynn, you always stood up for him ; I never said anything, 
but I know you did. I came first to you. Yes, it is all 
true.” 

The old lady had known it now for several hours, and 
had been gently excited, no more. Now her eyes filled with 
tears, she could not have told why. 

“ Dear boy ! I hope God will bless him, and make him 
worthy and great,” she said, clasping her old hands together. 
“ He has always been a favorite with me.” 

“ He is a favorite with everybody,” said July. No one 
had noticed her presence, and she was notone that ‘could 
remain unseen. Everybody is glad ; there is not one that 
doesn’t Avish him well.” 

Did she intend to strike that coup for herself which her 
mother was not to be trusted to make ? Mrs. Wynn thought 
so with a great tremor, and interrupted her in a tone that 
for hei’ was hurried and anxious. 

“ July speaks nothing but the truth, Mrs. Methven ; 
there is nobody that does not like Walter ; but I suppose I 
ought now to ' drop these familiarities and call him Lord 
Erradeen ? ” 

“ He will never Avish his old friends to do that,” said Mrs. 
Methven. She already smiled Avith a gracious glance and 
gesture : and the feeling that these old friends Avere almost 
too much iirivileged in being so near to him, and admitted 
to such signs of friendship, came into her mind ; but she 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


38 

did not care to have July share her expansion. “ Miss 
Herbert,” she said, with a little bow, “ is very good to speak 
so kindly. But everybody is kind. I did not know iny l^y 
was so popular. Sunshine,” she added, with a smile, 
“ brings out all the flowers.” 

She had not sat down, and she evidently did not mean to 
do so while July remained. There was something grand in 
her upright carriage, in her air of superiority which had 
never been apparent before. She had always been a woman, 
as Sloebury people said, who thought a great deal of herself ; 
but no one had ever acknowledged her right to tto so till 
now. On the other hand, July Herbert was well used to the 
cold shade. Her mother was Mrs. Wjuin’s niece, but she 
was none the less poor for that, and as July was not a girl 
to be easily put down, she was acquainted with every 
manner of polite snubbing known in the society of the place. 
This of standing till she should go was one with whicn she 
was perfectly familiar, and in many cases . it afforded her 
pleasure to subject the operator to great personal inconve- 
nience ; but on the present occasion she was not disposed 
to exercise this power. She would have conciliated Walter’s 
mother if she could have done so, and on a rapid survey of 
the situation she decided that the best plan was to 
yield. 

“ I must go and tell mamma the great news,” she said. 
“ I am sure she will never rest till she rushes to you with 
her congratulations ; but I will tell her you are’ tired of 
congratulations already — for of course it is not a thing upon 
Avhich there can be two opinions.” July laid down the cas- 
sock as she spoke. “ I have mended all there is to mend 
Aunt Lydia ; you need not take any more trouble about it. 
Good-bye for the moment. You may be sure you will see 
one or other of us before night.” 

They watched her silently as she went out of the room, 
iffrs. Methven saying nothing till the door had closed, Mrs. 
Wynn with a deprecatory smile upon her face. She did not 
altogether approve of her grandniece. But neither was she 
willing to hand her over to blame. The old lady felt the 
snub July had received more than the girl herself did. She 
looked a little wistfully after her. She was half angry when 
as soon as July disappeared Mrs. Methven sank down upon 
a chair near h’er, huge billows of black silk rising about her, 
for she had put on her best gown. Mrs. Wynn thought that 
the mother, whos6 child, disapproved by the world, had 
been thus miraculously lifted above its’ censures, should 
have been all the more tolerant of the other who had met 
no such glorious fate. But she reflected that they never see 

which was her favorite expression of wonderment, yet 
explanation of everything. There were so many things that 
they ought to learn by ; but they never saw it- It was thus 


THE WIZARD'S SOTf. 


39 


she accounted with that shake of her head for all the errors 
of mankind. 

Mrs. Methven for her part waited till even the very step 
of that objectionable Julia Herbert had died away. She had 
known by instinct that if that girl should appear she would 
be on the watch to make herself agreeable to Walter’s 
mother. “As if he could ever have thought of her,” she 
said to herself. Twenty-four hours before Mrs. Methven 
Avould have been glad to think that Walter “ thought of ” 
any girl who was at all in his own position. She would have 
hailed it as a means oh steadying him, and making him turn 
seriously to his life. But everything was now changed, and 
this interruption had been very disagreeable. She could 
scarcely turn to her old friend now with the effusion and 
emotion which had filled her when she came in. She held 
out her hand and grasped that of the old lady. 

“ I don’t need to tell you what I am feeling,” she sakh 
“ It is all like a tumultuous sea of wonder and thankfulness. 
I wanted it, for I was at my wits’ end.” 

Mrs. Wynn was a little chilled too, but she took the 
younger woman’s hand. 

You did not know what was coming,” she said. “ You 
Avanted one thing, and Providence was preparing 
another.” 


“ I don’t know if that is how to state it ; but at all events 
I was getting to feel that I could not l)ear it any longer, and 
trying for any way of setting things right : when the good 
came in this superlative way. I feel frightened when T think 
of it. After we knew last night I could do nothing but cry. 
It took all the strength from me. You Avould have thouglit 
it Avas bad ncAVS.” 

“ I can understand that.” The old lady relinquished the 
hand Avhich she had been holding. “ To be delivered from 
any anxieties you may have had in such a superlative Avay, 
as you say, is not the common lot— most of us have just to 
fight them out.” 

Mrs. Methven already felt herself far floated away from 
those that had to fight it out. The very Avords filled her 
heart with an elation beyond speech. 

“ And this morning ” she said, “ to Avake and to feel that 
it must be folly, and then to realize that it Avas true ! One 
knoAVS so Avell the other sort of Avaking when the shock and 
the pang come all over again. But to Avake up to this ex- 
traordinary incredible Avelhbeing— one might say happi- 
ness ! ” 

The tears of joy Avere in her eyes, and in those tears there 
is something so strange, so rare, that the soul experienced 
in life, looks upon them almost with more aAve than upon 
the familiar ones of grief AAdiich Ave see every day. The old 
lady melted, and her chill of feeling yielded to a tender 


40 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


warmth. Yet what a pity that they never see it! How 
much more perfect it would have been if the woman in her 
happiness had been softened* and kind to all those whom 
nothing had happened to ! Imperceptibly the old lady in 
her tolerant experience shook her gentle old head. Then 
she gave herself up in full sympathy to hear all the wonder- 
ful details. 


CHAPTER V. 

The sentiments of the spectators in such a grand alter- 
ation of fortune may be interesting enough, and it is m 
general more easy to get at them than at those which fill the 
mind of the principal actor. In the present case it is better 
to say of the principal subject of the change, for Walter 
could not be said to be an actor at all. The emotions of the 
first evenmg it Avould indeed be impossible to describe. To 
come in from his small country-town society, to whom even 
he was so far inferior that every one of them had facilities 
of getting and spending money which he did not possess, 
and to sit down, all tremulous and guilty, feeling himself the 
poorest creature, opposite to the serious and important 
personage who came to tell him, with documents as solemn 
as liimself, that this silly youth who had been throwing 
away his life for nothing, without even the swell of excite- 
ment to carry him on, had suddenly become, without deserv- 
ing it, without doing anything to brmgit about, an individu- 
al of the first importance— a peer, a proprietor, a great 
man. Walter could have sobbed as his mother did, had not 
pride kept him back. When they sat down at table in the 
little dinmg-room there were two at least of the party who 
ate nothing, who sat and gazed at each other across the 
others with white faces and blazing eyes. Mr. Milnathort 
made a good dinner, and sat very watchful, making also his 
observations, full of curiosity and a certain half professional 
interest. But Cousin Sophy was the on^ one who really 
got the good of this prodigious event. She asked if they 
might not have some champagne to celebrate the day. She- 
was in high excitement but quite self-controlled, and en- 
joyed it thoroughly. She immediately began in her thoughts 
to talk of my young cousin Lord Erradeen. It was a delight- 
ful advancement wliich would bring her no advantage, and 
yet almost pleased her more than so much added on to her 
income ; for Miss Merivale was not of any distinction 
in her parentage, and suddenly to find herself cousin to a 
lord went to her heart : it was a great benefit to the solitary 
lady fond of society, and very eager for a helping handtoaih 
her up the ascent. And it was she who kept the convex- 


THE WIZARD’S SOH. 4 1 

sation going. She even flirted a little, quite becomingly 
with the old lawyer, who felt her, it was evident, a relief 
from the high tension of the others, and was amused by 
the vivacious middle-aged lady, who for the moment had 
everything her own way. After dinner there was a great 
deal Oi explanation given, and a great many facts made clear, 
but it IS to be doubted whether W alter knew very w’ell what 
was being said. He listened with an air of attention, but it 
wasas if he were listening to some fairy tale. Something 
put ot the Arabian Nights was bemg repeated before him. 
He was informed how the different branches of his family 
had died out one after another. “ Captain Methven was 
aware that he was in the succession,” the lawyer said; and 
Mrs. Methven cast a thought back, half-reproachful, half-ap- 
provmg upon her husband, who had been dead so long that his 
words and ways were like shadows to her, which she could 
but faintly recall. Would it have been better if he had told 
her? After pursuing this thought along time she' decided 
that it would not, that he had done wisely— yet felt a little 
visionary grudge and disappointment to think that he had 
been able to keep such a secret from her. Ho doubt it was 
all for the best. She might have distracted herself with 
hopes, and worn out her mind with waiting. It was doubt- 
ful if the support of knowing what was going to happen 
would really have done her any good ; but yet it seemea a 
want of trust in her, it seemed even to put her in a partially 
ridiculous position now, as knowing nothing, not having 
even an idea of what was coming. But Walter did not share 
any of these goings back upon the past. He had scarcely 
kno\vn his father, nor was he old enough to have had such a 
secret confided to him for long after Captain Methven died. 
He thought nothing of that. He sat with an appearance of 
the deepest attention, but unaware of what was being said, 
with a vague elation in his mind, something that seemed to 
buoy him up above the material earth. He could not bring 
himself dovm again. It was what he remembered to have 
felt when he was a child when some long promised pleasure 
was coming— to-morroAV. Even in that case hindrances 
might come in. It might rain to-morrow, or some similar 
calamity might occur. But rain could not affect this. He 
sat and listened and did not hear a word. 

Hext morning Walter awoke very early, before the wintry 
day had fully dawned. He opened nis eyes upon a sort of 
paling and whitening of everything— a gray perception of 
tlie Avails about him, and the lines of the Avindow marked 
upon the paleness outside. What Avas it that made even 
these depressing facts exhilarate him and rouse an incipient 
delight in his mind, which for the moment he did not under- 
stand ? Then he sat up suddenly in his bed. It was cold, it 
Avas dark. There was no assiduous servant to bring hot 


4-2 


T'lIE WIZARD^S SON. 


water or light his fire — everything; was chilling and wretched ; 
and he was not given to early rising. Ordinarily it was an 
affair of some trouble to get nim roused, to see that he was 
in time for a train or for any early occupation. But this 
morjiing he found it impossible to lie still ; an elasticity in 
him, an elation and buoyancy, which he almost felt, with a 
laugh, might float him up to the ceiling, like the mediums, 
made him jump up, as it were in self-defence. It buoyed 
him, it carried nim as on floating pinions into a limitless 
heaven. What was it ? Who was he ? The chill of the 
morning brought him a little to himself^ and then he sat 
down in his shirt-sleeves and delivered himself up to the in- 
credible, and laughed low and long, Avith the sense of the 
impossibility of it that brought tears to his eyes. He Lord 
Erradeen, Lord anything ! He a peer, a great man ! he with 
lands and money and wealth of every sort, who last night 
had been pleased to win two sixpences ! Alter the buoyancy 
and sensation of rising beyond the world altogether, which 
was a kind of physical consciousness of something great that 
had happened before he was awake, came this sense of the 
ludicrous, this incredulity and confused amusement. He 
dressed himself in this mood, laughing low from time to time, 
to himself, as if it were some game which was being played 
upon him, but of which he was in the secret, and not to be 
deceived, however artfully it might be managed. But when 
he was dressed and ready to go downstairs— by which time 
daylight had fully struggled forth upon a wet and clammy 
world— he stopped himself short with a sudden reminder 
that to-day this curious practical joke was to extend its 
career and become known to the world. He laughed again, 
but then he grew grave, standing staring at the closed door 
of his bedroom, out of Avhich he was about to issue— no 
longer a nobody— in a new character, to meet the remarks, 
the congratulations of his friends. He knew that the news 
would fly through the little town like lightning; that 
people would stop each other in the streets and ask, “ Have 
you heard it ? — is it true ? ” and that throughout the whole 
place there would be a sort of revolution, a general change 
ot positions, which would confuse the very world. He knew 
vaguely th^ whatever else might happen he would be up- 
permost. The people who had disapproved of him, and 
treated him de haut en has, would find this to be impossible 
any longer. He would be in a position which is to be seen 
on the stage and in books more frequentlv than in common 
lite— possessed of the power of making retribution, of punish- 
ing the wicked, and distributing to the good tokens of his 
favor. It is a thing we would all like to do, to avenge onr- 
ourselves (within due Christian and social limits) on the pei*- 
sons who have despised us, and to reward those who have 
believed in us, showing the one how right they were, and 


THE WIZARD'S SOH. 


43 

the other how wron^ they were, with a logic that should be 
undeniable. There is nobody who has ever endured a snub 
—and who has not ?— who would not delight in doing this ; 
but the most of us never get such a supreme gratification, 
and AYalter was to have it. He was going to see everybody 
abashed and confounded who had ever treated him with con- 
tumely. Once more he felt that sensation of buoyancy and 
elation as if he were spurning earth with his foot and ready 
to soar into some sort of celestial sphere. And then once 
more he laughed to himself. Was it possible? could it be? 
would anybody believe it ? He thought there would be an 
explosion of incredulous laughter through all the streets : 
but then, when that was over, both friends and foes would 
be forced to believe it — as he himself was forced to believe. 

With that he opened his door, and went doAvnstairs into 
the new world. He stumbled over the housemaid’s pail, of 
course, but did not call forth, any frown upon that function- 
ary’s freckled forehead, as he would have done yesterday. 
On the contrary, she took away the pail, and begged his par- 
don with awe— being of course entirely blameless. He 
paused for a moment on the steps as he faced the raw morn- 
ing air going out, and lo ! the early baker, who was having 
a word Avith cook at the area over the rolls, turned towards 
him with a reverential look, and pulled ofi his cap. These 
were the first visible signs of Walter’s greatness ; they gave 
him a curious sort of conviction that after all the thing was 
true. 

There Avas scarcely anybody about the Sloebury streets 
except bakers and milkmen at this hour. It AVas a leisurely 
little town, in Avhich nothing particular was doing, no manu- 
factures or business to demand early horns ; and the good 
people did not get up early. Why should they ? the day Avas 
long enough Avithout that: so that Walter met no one m his 
early promenade. But before he got back there Avere symp- 
toms that the particular baker who had taken off his cap had 
Avhispered the neAvs to others of his fraternity, Avho, having 
no tie of human connection, such as supplying the family 
Avith rolls, to justify a salutation, only stared at him Avith 
aAve-stricken looks as he Avent past. He felt he Avas an ob- 
ject of interest even to the policeman going off duty, Avho, 
being an old soldier, saluted Avith a certain grandeur as he 
tramped by. The young man took an aimless stroll through 
the half-aAvakened district. The roads Avere Avet, the air 
raAv ; it Avas not a cheerful morning ; damp and discourage- 
ment breathed in the air ; the little streets looked squalid 
and featureless in shabby British poA^erty ; lines of Ioav, tAvo- 
storied brick, all commonplace and monotonous. ^ It Avas the 
sort of morning to make you think of the tediousness to 
which most people get up every day, supposing it to be life, 
and accepting it as such Avith the dull content which knoAvs 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


44 

no better ; a life made up of scrubbing out of kitchens and 
sweeping out of parlors, of taking down shutters and puttmg 
them up again ; all sordid, petty, unbroken by any exhilarat- 
ing event. But this was not what struck Walter as he 
floated along in his own wonderful atmosphere, seeing 
nothing, noting everything with the strange vision of excite- 
ment. Afterwards he recollected with extraordinary vivid- 
ness a man who stood stretching his arms in shirt sleeves 
above his head for a long, soul-satisfying yawn, and remem- 
bered to have looked up at the shop window within which 
he was standing, and read the name of Robinson in gilt let- 
ters. Robinson, yawning in his shirt sleeves, against a back- 
ground of groceries, pallid in the early light, remained with 
him like a picture for many a day. 

When he got back the breakfast table was spread, and his 
mother taking her place at it. Mr. Milnathort had not gone 
away as he intended by the night train. He had relnained 
in Mrs. Methven’s spare room, surrounded by all the atten- 
tions and civilities that a household of women, regarding 
him with a sort of awe as a miraculous messenger or even 
creator of good fortune, could show to a bachelor gentleman, 
somewhat prim and old-fashioned in his habits and ways. 
It was his intention to leave Sloebury by the eleven o’clock 
train, and he had arranged that Walter should meet him in 
Edinburgh within a week, to be made acquainted with 
several family matters, in which, as the head of the house, it 
was necessary that he should be fully instructed. Neither 
Walter nor his mother paid very much attention to these ar- 
rangements, nor even remarked that the old lawyer spoke of 
them With great gravity. Mrs. Methven was busy making 
tea, and full of anxiety that Mr. Milnathort should breakfast 
well and largely, after what she had always understood to 
be the fashion or his country ; and as for Walter, he was not 
in a state of mind to observe particularly any such indica- 
tions of manner. Cousin Sophia was the only one who re- 
marked the solemnity of his tone and aspect. 

“One would suppose there was some ordeal to go 
through,” she said, in her vivacious way. 

“ A young gentleman who is taking up a large fortune 
and a great responsibility will have many ordeals to go 
through, madam,” Mr. MilnathoH said, in his deliberate 
tones : but he did not smile or take any other notice of her 
archness. It was settled accordingly, that after a few days 
for preparation and leave-taking, young Lord Erradeeii 
should leave Sloebury. “ And if I might advise, alone,” Mr. 
iMilnathort said, “ the place is perhaps not just in a condition 
to receive ladies. I would think it wiser on the whole, 
ipadam, if you deferred j^our coming till his lordship there 
has settled everything for your reception.” 

My coming ? ” said Mrs. Methven. The last twelve 


THE Vl^IZARHS SOH. 


45 

hours had made an extraordinary difference in her feelings 
and faith ; but still she had not forgotten what had gone be- 
fore, nor the controversies and struggles of the past. “ We 
must leave all that for after consideration,” she said. 

Walter was about to speak impulsively, but old Milna- 
thort stopped him with a skilful interruption— 

“It will perhaps be the wisest way,” he said ; “ there will 
be many things to arrange. When Lord Erradeen has 
visited the property, and understands everything about it, 
then he will be able to ” 

Walter heard the name at first with easy unconsciousness ; 
then it suddenly blazed forth upon him as his own name. 
His mother at the other end of the table felt the thrill of the 
same sensation. Their eyes met ; and all the wonder of this 
strange new life suddenly gleamed upon them with double 
force. It is truedhat the whole condition of their minds was 
affected by this revelation, that there was nothing about them 
that was not full of it, and that they were actually at this 
moment discussing the business connected with it. Still it 
all came to life now as at the first moment at the somid of 
this name. Lord Erradeen ! Walter could not help laughing 
to himself over his coffee. 

“ I can’t tell who you mean,” he said. “ You must wait a 
little until I realize what Walter Methven has got to do 
with it.” 

Mrs. Methven thought that this was making too much of 
the change. She already wished to believe, or at least to 
persuade Mr. Milnathort to believe, that she was not so very 
much surprised after all. 

“ Lord Erradeen,” she said, “ is too 2nuch amused at pres- 
ent with having got a new name to take the change very 
seriously.” 

“ He will soon learn the difference, madam,” said Mr. IVlil- 
nathort. “ Property is a thing that has always to be taken 
seriously: and of all property the Erradeen lands. There 
are many things connected with them that he will have to 
set his face to in a way that will be far from amusing.” 

The old lav/yer had a very grave countenance— perhaps it 
was because he was a Scotchman. He worked through his 
breakfast witii a steady routine that filled the ladies with 
respect. First fish, then kidneys, then a leg of the partridge 
that had been left from dinner last night ; finally he looked 
about the table with an evident sense of something wanting, 
and though he declared that it was of no consequence avowed 
at last, with some shyness, that it was the marmalade for 
which he was looking ; and there was none in the house ! 
Mr. Milnathort was full of excuses for having made such a 
suggestion. It was just a Scotch fashion he declared ; it was 
of "no consequence. Mrs. Methven who held an unconscious 
conviction that it was somehow owing to him that W alter had 


THE WIZARHS SOH. 


46 

become Lord Erradeen, was made quite unhappy by the 
omission. 

“ I shall know better another time,” she said, regretfully. 
They were all still under the impression more or less that it 
Avas his doing. He was not a mere agent to them, but the 
god, out of the machinery, who had turned darkness into 
light. He justified this opinion still more fully before he 
went away, putting into Walter’s hand a cheque-book from a 
London bank, into which a sum of money which seemed to 
the inexperienced young man inexhaustible, had been paid 
to his credit. The old gentleman on his side seemed half- 
embarrassed, half-impatient after a while by the attention 
shown him. He resisted when W alter declared his intention 
of going to the raihvay to see him oft*. 

“ That is just a reversal of our positions,” he said. 

At this Mrs. Methven became a little anxious, fearing that 
perhaps Walter’s simplicity might be going too far. She 
gave him a word of Avarning Avhen the cab drove up for Mr. 
Milnathort’s bag. It Avas not a very large one, and Walter 
Avas quite equal to the condescension of carrying it to the 
station if his mother had not taken that precaution. She 
could not make up her mind that he Avas able to manage for 
himself. 

“ You must remember that after all he is only your man 
of business,” she said, notAvithstanding all the Avorship she 
had herself been paying to this emissary of fortune. It Avas 
a relief to shake hands Avith him, to see iiim drive aAvay from 
the door, leaving behind him such an amazing, such an in- 
calculable change. SomehoAv it Avas more easy to realize it 
when he Avas no longer there. And this Avas AAliat Walter 
felt Avhen he Avalkecl aAvay from the raihvay, having seen 
Avith great satisfaction the grizzled head of the old Scotsman 
nod at him from a Avindow of the departing train. The mes- 
senger was gone ; the thing which he had orought with him, 
did that remain ? Was it conceivable that it was noAv fixed 
and certain not to be affected by anything that could be done 
or said ? Walter Avalked steadily enough along the pavement, 
but he did not think he Avas doing so. The AA^orld around him 
SAvam in his eyes once more. He could not make sure that 
he Avas Avalking on solid ground, or mounting un into the air. 
Hoav different it was from the Avay in Avhich he had come 
forth yesterday, idle, half-guilty, angry Avith himself and 
everybody, yet knoAvingwery Avell what to do, turning Avith 
habitual feet into the Avay where all the other idlers congre- 
gated, knowing Avho he should meet and AvhatAvould happen. 
He Avas separated from all that as if by an ocean. He had 
no longer anything to do Avith these foolish loungers. His 
mother had told him a thousand times in often varied tones 
that they Avere not companions for him ; to-day he recognized 
the fact with a certain disgust. He felt it more strongly still 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


47 

when he suddenly came across Captain Underwood coming 
up eagerly with outstretched hands. 

“ I hope I am the first to congratulate you, Lord Erradeen,” 
he said. “ Now you will know Avhy I asked you yesterday. 
Was there any news ” 

“Now I shall know? I don’t a hit ; what do you mean? 
Do you mean me to believe that you had any hand in it ? ” 
Walter cried, with a tone of mingled incredulity and 
disdain. 

“No hand in it, unless I had helped ta put the last poor 
dear lord out of the way. I could scarcely have had tliat ; 
but if you mean did I know about it, t certainly did, as you 
must if you had been a little more in the world. 

“ Why didn’t you tell me then ? ” said Walter. He added 
somewhat hotly, with something of the sublime assumption 
of youth : “ Waiting for a man to die would never have suited 
me. I much prefer to have been, as you say, out of the 
world ” 

“ Oh, Lord ! I didn’t mean to offend you,” said the captain. 
“ Don’t get on a high horse. Of course, if you’d known 
your Debrett as I do, you would have seen the thing plain 
enough. However, we needn’t quarrel about it. I have 
always said you were my pupil, and I hope I have put you 
up to a few things that will be of use on your entry into 
society.” 

“Ilaveyou?” said Walter. He could not think how he 
had ever for a moment put up with this underbred person. 
Underwood stood before him with a sort of jaunty rendering 
of the appeal with which grooms and people about the stalde 
remind a young man of Avhat in his boyish days they have 
done for him— an appeal which has its natural issue in a 
sovereign. But he could not give Underwood a sovereign, 
and it was perhaps just a little ungenerous to turn in the first 
moment of his prosperity from a man who, from whatevei* 
purpose, had been serviceable to him in his poverty. He 
said, with an attempt to be more friendly : “ I know. Under- 
wood, you have been very kind.” 

“Oh, by Jove! kind isn’t the word. I knew you’d want 
a bit of training ; the best thoroughbred that ever stepped 
wants that ; and if I can be of any use to you in the future, I 
will. I knew old Erradeen ; I’ve known all about the iamily 
for generations. There are a great many curious things about 
it, but I think I can help you through them,” said the captain, 
with a mixture of anxiety and swagger. There had always 
been something of this same mixture about him, but W alter 
never been fully conscious what it was till now. 

“ Thank you,” he said ; “ perhaps it will be better to let 
that develop itself in a natural way. I am going to Scotland 
in a v^eek, and then I shall have it at first hand.” 

“Then I can tell you beforehand you will find a great 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


4S 

many things yon won’t like,” said Underwood, abruptly. 
“ It is not for nothing that a family gets up such a reputation. 
I know two or three Of your places. Muhnorrel, and the 
shooting-box on Loch Etive, and that mysterious old place 
at Kinloch-houran. I have been at every one of them. It 
was not everybody, I can tell you, that old Erradeen would 
have taken to that place. Why, there is a mystery at every 
corner. There is ” . , 

Walter held up his hand to stay this torrent. He colored 
high with a curious sentiment of proprietorship and the 
shrinking of pride from hearing that which was his discussed 
by 'strangers. He scarcely knew the names of them, and 
their histories not at all. He put up his hand : “ I would ra- 
ther find out the mysteries for myself,” he said. 

“ Oh,” cried Underwood, “ if you are standing on yoiir dig- 
nity, my lord, as you like, for that matter. I am not one to 
thrust my company upon any man if he doesn’t like it. I 
have stood your friend, and I would again ; but as for forcing 

mvself upon you now that you’ve come to your kingdom ” 

Underwood,” cried the other, touched in the tenderest 
point, “ if you dare to insinuate that this has changed me, I 
desire never to speak to you again. But it is only, I suppose, 
one of the figures of speech that people use when they are 
angry. I am not such a, cad as you make me out. "Whether 
my name is Methven or Erradeen— I don’t seem to know very 
well winch it is ” 

“ It is both,” the othei* cried with a laugh, and shook 
hands, engaging to dine together at the hotel on that evening. 
Underwood, who was knowing in such matters, was to order 
the dinner, and two or three of “ the old set ” were to be in- 
vitedf. It would be a farewell to his former comrades, as 
Walter intended ; and with a curious recurrence of his first 
elation he charged his representative to spare no expense. 
There was something intoxicating and straiige in the very 
phrase. 

As he left Underwood and proceeded along the High 
Street, where, if he had not waved his hand to them in pass- 
ing with an air of haste and preoccujDation, at least every 
second person he met would have stopped him to wish him 
ioy, he suddenly encountered July Herbert. She was going 
home from the vicarage, out of which his mother had politely 
driven her ; and it seemed the most wonderful limk to July 
to get him to herself, thus wholly unprotected* and with 
nobody even to see what she was after. She went up to 
him, hot with Underwood’s eagerness, but with a pretty 
frank pleasure in her face. 

“ I have heard a fairy tale,” she said, “ and is it true ” 

“ I suppose you mean about me,” said Walter. “ Yes, I 
anl afraid it is true, I don’t exactly knov*^ who I am at 
present,” 


THE WIZARD^ S SON. 


49 


“ Afraid ! ” cried July. “ Ah, you know you don’t mean 
that. At all events, you are no longer the old Walter whom 
we have known all our lives.” 

Tliere was another girl with her whom W alter knew but 
slightly, but who justified the plurai pronoun. 

“ On the contrary, I was going to say, when you inter- 
rupted me ” 

“ I am so sorry I interrupted you.” 

“ That though I did hot know who I was in the face of the 
world, I was always the old Walter, etc. A man, I believe, 
can never lose his Christian name.” 

“ Nor a woman either,” said July. “ That is the only thing 
that cannot be taken a. way from us. We are supposed, you 
know, rather to like the loss of the other one.” 

“ I have heard so,” said Walter, who was not accustomed 
to this sort of fencing. “ But I suppose it is not true.” ' 

“ Oh,” said July, “ if it were for the same reason that 
makes you change your name, I should not mmd. But there 
is no peerage in our family that I know of, and I should not 
have any chance if there v/ere, alas ! Good-by, Lord Erra- 
deen. It is a lovely name ! And may I always speak to you 
when I meet you, though you are such a grand personage ? 
We do not hope to see you at the Cottage now, but mamma 
will like to know that you still recognize an old friend.” 

“ 1 shall come and ask Mrs. Herbert what she thinks of it 
all,” Walter said. 

July’s brown eyes flashed out with triumph as she 
laughed and waved her hand to. him. She said, — 

“ It will be too great an honor,” and curtseyed ; then 
laughed again as she went on, casting a glance at him over 
her shoulder. 

He laughed too ; he was young, and lie was gratified even 
by this midisguised provocation, though he could not help 
saying to himself, vuth a slight beat of his heart, how near 
he was to falling in love with that girl ! What a good thing 
it was that he did not — novi ! ^ 

As for July she looked at him with a certain ferocity, as 
if she would have devoured him. To think of all that boy 
had it in his power to give if he pleased, and to think how 
little a poor girl could do ! 


^ CHAPTER VI. 

Mrs. Metiiven was conscious of a new revival of the old 
displeasure when Walter informed her of the enpgement he 
had formed for the evening. She was utterly disappointed. 
She had thought that the great and beneficial shock of this 
new life would turn his character altogether, and convert 


THE - WIZARD^ S SON. 


50 

him into that domestic sovereign, that object of constant re- 
ference, criticism, and devotion which every woman Avould 
have every man be. It was a wonderful mortification and en- 
lightenment to find that without even the interval of a single 
evening devoted to the consideration of his new and marvel- 
lous prospects, and that talking over which is one of the 
sweetest parts of a great and happy event, he should return 
— to what? — to wallowing in the mire, as the Scripture says, 
to his old billiard room acquaintances, the idlers and un- 
desirable persons with whom he had formed associations. 
Could there be anything more unsuitable than Lord Erradeen 
in the midst of such a party, with Underwood, and perhaps 
worse than Underwood. It wounded her pride and roused 
her temper, and in spite of all her efforts, it was with a 
lowering brow tha she saw him go away. Afterwards, indeed, 
when she thought of it, as she did for hours together, while 
cousin Sophia talked, and she languidly replied, maintaining 
a conversation from the lips outward, so poor a substitute 
for the evening’s talking over and happy consultation she 
had dreamed of— Mrs. Methven was more just to her son. 
She tried always to be just, poor lady. She placed before 
herself all the reasons for his conduct. That he should enter- 
tain the men who, much against her wish and his own good, 
yet in their way had been kind to, and entertained him, was 
natural. But to do it this first evening was hard, and she 
could not easily accept her disappointment. Afterwards she 
reminded herself with a certain stern philosophy that be- 
cause Walter had owned a touch of natural emotion, and had 
drawn near to her and confessed himself in the wrong, that 
was no reason why his character should be changed in a 
moment. There were numbers of men who on occasion felt 
and lamented their misdoing, yet went on again in the same 
v^ay. He had been no doubt startled, as some are by calam- 
ity^ by the more extraordinary shock of this good lortune ; 
biit why should he for that abandon all the tastes and occu- 
])ations* of his former life ? It was she, she said to herself, 
with some bitterness, who was a fool. The fact was that 
Walter meant no harm at all, and that it was merely the first 
impulse of a half scornful liberality, impatience of the old as- 
sociations, which he had tacitly acknowledged were not fit 
for him, that led him back to his former companions. lie 
felt afterwards that it would have been in better taste had 
he postponed this for a night. But he was vers impatient 
and eager to shake himself free of them, and enmr upon his 
new career. 

Something of the same disappointed and disapproving 
sentiment filled Mrs. Methven’s mind when she heard of bis 
visit to the Cottage. She knew no reason why he should 
take a special leave of July Herbert ; if he knew himself a 
reason, which he did not disclose, that was another matter. 


TttE mZAEE^S SOM 


Thoughts like this embittered the preparations for his de- 
parture, which otherwise would have been so agreeable. She 
had to see after many things which a young man of more 
wealth, or more independent habits, would have done for 
himself — his linen, his portmanteau, most of the things he 
wanted, except the tailor part of the business ; but it was not 
until the last evening that there was any of the confidential 
consultation, for which her heart had longed. Even on that 
last day Walter had been very little indoors. He had been 
busy with a hundred trifles, and she had begun to make up 
her mind to his going away without a word said as to their 
future relations, as to whether he meant his mother to share 
any of the advantages of his new position, or to drop her at 
Sloebury as something done with, which he did not care to 
burden himself with, any more than the other circumstances 
of his past career. She did so little justice to the real gene- 
rosity of her son’s temper in the closeness of her contest with 
him, and the heat of personal feeling, that she had begun to 
make up her mind to this, with what pain and bitterness it 
is unnecessary to say. 

She had even begun to make excuses for her own deser- 
tion in the tumult of endless thought upon this one subject 
which possessed her. She would be just ; after all, was it 
not better perhaps that she should be left in the little house 
which was her independent home, for which she owed noth- 
ing to any one ? If any unnecessary sense of gratitude made 
him offer her reluctantly a shate in his new life, that would 
be humiliation indeed. If, as was apparent, her society, her 
ad^fice, her love were nothing to him, was it not far better 
that both should recognize the situation, and view things in 
their true light ? This the proud woman had made up her 
mind to, with what depth of wounded tenderness and embit- 
tered affection who could say ? She had packed for him wfith 
her own hands, for all his permanent arrangements were to 
be made after he had left Sloebury, and to diange her house- 
hold in consequence of an alteration of fortune which, ac- 
cording to all appearances would not concern her, was, she 
had proudly decided, quite out of the question. She packed 
for him as m the days Avhen he was going to school, when he 
was a boy, and liked everything better that had been done 
by his mother. A woman may be pardoned for feeling such 
aAifference v/ith a passionate soreness and sense of down- 
fall. In those days how she had thought of the time when 
he would be grown up, when he would understand all her 
difficulties and share all her cares and in his own advance- 
ment and make her triumphant and happy. God forgive me, 
she said to herself, now he has got advancement far above 
my hopes, and I am making myself wretched thinking of 
myself. She stopped and cried a little over his new linen. 
No, he was' right; if it must be allowed that they did not 


THE WIZARDS SON\ 


SX 

“ get on,” it was indeed far better in the long run that there 
should be no false sentiment, no keeping up of an untenable 
position. Thank God she required nothing ; she had enough ; 
she wanted neither luxury nor grandeur, and her home, her 
natural place was here, where she had lived so many years, 
where she could disarm all comment upon Walter’s neglect 
of her, by saying that she preferred the place where she had 
lived so long, and where she had so many friends. Why, in- 
deed, should she change her home at her time of life? No 
doubt he would come back some time and see her ; but after 
all why should her life be unsettled because his was changed ? 
It was he who showed true sense in his way of judging the 
matter, she said to herself with a smile, through the hastily 
dried and momentary tears. 

Walter came in when the packing was just about con- 
cluded. He came half way up the stairs and called “ Mother, 
where are you ? ” as he had often done when he was a boy 
and wanted her at every turn, but as he never did now. 
This touched and weakened her again in her steady resolu- 
tion to let him see no repining in her. “ Are you packing 
for me ? ” he called out again : “ what a shame, while I have 
been idling ! But come down, mother, please, and leave that. 
You forget we have everything to settle yet.” 

“ What is there to settle ? ” she said, with a certain sharp- 
ness of tone which she could not quite supi)ress, coming out 
upon the landing. The maids who were going to bed, and 
who heard all this, thought it was beautiful to hear his lord- 
ship speaking like that, quite natural to his mother; but 
that missus was that hard it was no wonder if they didn’t 
get on ; and Cousin Sophia from her virgin retirement, where 
she sat in her dressing-gown reading a French novel, and 
very much alive to every somid, commented in her own 
mind, closing her book, in the same sense^ Now she will 
.just go and hold him at arm’s length while the boy’s heart 
IS melting, and then break her own,” Miss Merivale said to 
herself. Thus everybody was against her and in favor of 
the fortunate young fellow who had been supping on homage 
and flattery, and now came in easy and careless to make 
everything straight at the last mohient. Mrs. Methven on 
her side was very tired, and tremulous with the exertion of 
packing. It would have been impossible for her to banish 
that tone out of her voice. 8he stood in the subdued liglit 
upon the stairs looking down upon him. leaning on the ban- 
ister to support herself ; while he, with ail the light from 
below upon his face, ruddy with th^ niglit air, and the ap- 
plauses, and his own high well-being, looked up gayly at her. 
He had shaken ofl: all his old irritability in the confidence of 
happiness and good fortune that had taken possession of him. 
After a moment he came springing up the stairs three at a 
time. 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


S3 


“You look tired, mother, while I have been wasting my 
time. Come down, and let us have our talk. I’ll do all the 
rest to-morrow,” he said, throwing his arm round her and 
leading her downstairs. He brought her some wine first of 
all and a footstool, and threw himself into the easy task of 
making her comfortable. “Now,” he said, “let’s talk it all 
over,” drawing a chair to her side. 

All this was quite new upon Walter’s part— or rather 
quite old, belonging to an age which had long ago gone. 

“ Isn’t it rather late for that ? she said, with a famt 
smile. 

“ Yes, and I am ashamed of myself ; but, unfortunately, 
you are so used to that. We must settle, however, mother. 
I am to go first of all to Kinloch-houran, which Milnathort 

says is not a place for you. Indeed, I hear ” here he 

paused a little as if he would have named his authority, and 
continued, “ that it is a ruinous sort of place ; and why I 
should go there, I don’t know.” 

“ Where did you hear ? ” she said, with quick suspicion. 

“Well, mother, I would rather not have mentioned his 
name ; but if you wish to know, from Underwood. I know 
you are prejudiced agamst him. Yes^ it is prejudice j though 
I don’t wonder at it. I care nothing tor the fellow ; but still 

he knows these 

^ “ the reason of 
his being here ? ” ' . 

“ He never said so, nor have I asked him,” answered 
Walter, with something of his old sullenness ; but then he 
added— “The same thought has crossed my own mind, 
mother, and I shouldn’t wonder if it were so.” 

“ Walter,” she said, “a man like that, can have but one 
motive— the desire to aggrandize himself. For heaven’s 
sake, don’t have anything to do with him ; don’t let him get 
an influence over you.” 

“ You must have a very poor opinion of me, mother,” he 
said, in an aggrieved tone. 

She looked at him with a curious gaze, silenced, as it 
seemed. She loved him more than anything in the world, 
and thought of him above everything ; and yet perhaps in 
that wrath with those we love which works like madness in 


It comes out, which is rather strange, that 
places, and a good deal about the Erradeens 
“Is that, then,” cried the mother quickh 


tlm brain, it was true what he said— that she had a poor 
dphiion of him. Extremes meet, as the proverb says. _ How- 
ever, this was a mystery too deep for Walter to enter into. 

“ Don’t let us waste words about Underwood,” he said. 
“ I care nothing for the fellow ; he is vulgar and presuming 
—as you always said.” 

Partly, no doubt this avowal was made with the intention 
of pleasing his mother ; at the same time it proved the great 
moral effect of promotion in rank. Lord Erradeen saw with 


THE WIZARDS SOM> 


54 

the utmost distinctness what Walter Methven had only 
glimpsed by intervals. And it is impossible to describe how 
this speech pleased Mrs. Methven. Her tired eyes began to 
shine, her heart to return to its brighter hopes. 

“ The thing is, what arrangements you wish me to make,” 
said Walter. “ What are you gomg to do? I hear Mulmorrel 
is a handsome house, but it’s November, and naturally it is 
colder in the north. I)o you think you would care to go 
there now, or wait till the weather is better ? It may want fur- 
nishing, for anything I know ; and it appears we’ve got a 
little house in town.” 

“Walter,” she said, in a voice which was husky and 
tremulous, “ before you enter upon all this — you must first 
think, my dear. Are you sure it will be for your comfort to 
have me with you at all? Wouldn’t you rather be free, and 
make your omi arrangements, and leave me— as I am ? ” 

“ Mother ? ” the young man cried. He got up suddenly 
from where he was sitting beside her, and imshed away his 
chair, and stood facing her, with a sudden paleness and fiery 
eyes that seemed to dazzle her. He had almost kicked her 
footstool out of his way in his excitement and wounded 
feeling. “ Ho you mean to say you want to have nothing to 
do with me ?” he said. 

“Oh! my boy, you could not think so. I thought that 
was what— you meant. I msh only what is for your good.” 

“Would it be for my good to be an unnatural cad?” said 
the yqimg man, with rising indignation— “ a heartless, ill- 
conditioned whelp, with no sense and no feeling ? Oh, mother ! 
mother ! what a poor opinion you must have of me ! ” he 
cried; and so stung was he with this blow that sudden tears 
sprang to his eyes. “ All because I’m a fool and put every- 
thing off to the last moment,” he added, in a sort of mider- 
tone, as if explaining it to himself. “ But I’m not a beast for 
all that,” he said, fiercely. 

She made him no reply, but sat and gazed at him with a 
remorse and compunction, which, painful sentiments as they 
are, were to her sweet as the dews from heaven. Yes, it 
appeared that through all her passionate and absorbing ten- 
derness she had had a poor opinion of him. She had done 
him injustice. The conviction was like a new birth. That 
he should be Lord Erradeen was nothing in comparison of 
]3eing as he thus proved himself, good and true, open to the 
influences of affection and nature. She could not speak^lllut 
her eyes were full of a thousand things ; they asked him 
mutely to forgive her. They repented, and were abashed 
and rejoiced all in one glance. The young man who had not 
been nearly so heartless as she feared, was now not nearly so 
noble as she thought : but he was greatly touched by the 
crisis, and by the suggestion of many a miserable hour which 
was in her involuntary sin against Him and in her penitence. 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


55 

He came back again and sat close by her, and kissed her 
tremulously. 

“ I have been a cad,” he said. “ I don’t wonder you lost 
all faith in me, mother.” 

“ Not that, not that,” she said faintly ; and ' then there 
was a moment of exquisite silence, in which without a word, 
everything was atoned for, and pardon asked and given. 

And then began perhaps the nappiest hour of Mrs. Meth- 
ven’s life, in which tliey talked over everything and decided 
what was to be done. Not to give up the house in Sloebury 
at present, nor indeed to do anything at present, save wait 
till he had made his expedition into Scotland and seen his 
new property, and brought her full particulars. After he 
had investigated everything and knew exactly the capabili- 
ties of the house, and the condition in which it was, and all 
the necessities and expediences, they would then decide as 
to the best thing to be done ; whether to go there, though at 
the worst time of the year, or to go to London, which was an 
idea that pleased Walter but marmed his mother. Mrs. 
Methven did her best to remember what were the duties of 
a great landed proprietor and to bring them home to her 
son. 

“You ought to spend Christmas at your own place,” she 
said. “There will be charities and hospitalities and the 
poor people to look after.” 

She did not know Scotland, nor did she know very Avell 
what it was to be a great country magnate. She had been 
but a poor officer’s daughter herself, and had married another 
officer, and been beaten about from place to place before she 
settled down on her small income at Sloebury. She had not 
much more experience than Walter himself had in this re- 
spect ; indeed if the truth must be told both of tliem drew 
tneir chief information from novels, those much-abused 
sources of information, in which the life of rural potentates 
is a favorite subject and not always described with much 
knowledge. Walter gravely consented to all this, with a 
conscientious desire to do what was right : but he thought 
the place would most likely be gloomy for his mother in 
winter, and that hospitalities would naturally be uncalled for 
sp soon after the death of the old lord. 

• “What I would advise would be Park Lane,” he said, 
with a judicial tone. “ Milnathort said that it was quite a 
siipll house.” 

“ What is a small house in Park Lane would look a palace 
at Sloebury,” Mrs. Methven said ; “ and you must not begin 
on an extravagant footing, my dear.” 

“You will let us begin comfortably, I hope,” he said; 
“ and I must look for a nice carriage for you, mother,” 

Walter felt disposed to laugh as he said the words, but 
carried them off with an air of easy indifference as if it were 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


56 

the most natural thing in the world : while his mother on 
her side could have cried for pleasure and tenderness. 

“You must not mind me, Walter; we must think what 
is best for yourself,” she said as proud and pleased as if she 
had twenty carriages. 

“Nothing of the sort,” he said. “We are going to be 
comfortable, and you must have evervthing that is right 
first of all.” 

What an hour it was ! now and then there will be given 
to one individual out of a class full measure of recompense 
heaped and overfiowing, out of which the rest may get a 
sympathetic pleasure though they do not enjoy it in their 
own persons. JMrs. Methven had never imagined that this 
would come to her, but lo ! in a moment it was pouring upon 
her in floods of consolation. So absorbing was this happy 
consultation that it was only when her eyes suddenly caught 
the clock on the . mantelpiece, and saw that the hands were 
marking a quarter to two ! that Mrs. Methven startled awoke 
out of her bliss. 

“ My poor boy ! that I should keep you up to this hour 
talking, and a long journey before you to-morrow ! ” she 
cried. 

She hustled him up to his room after this, talking and re- 
sisting gayly to the very door. He was happy too with that 
sense of happiness conferred, which is always sweet, and 
especially to youth in the delightful, easy sense of power and 
l)eneficence. When he thought of it he was a little remorse- 
ful, to think that he had possessed the power so long and 
never exercised it, for Walter was generous enough to be 
av/are that the house in i’ark Lane and the carriage were 
not the occasions of his mother’s blessedness. “Poor 
mother,” he said to himself softly. He might have made her 
a great, deal more happy if he had chosen before these fine 
things were dreamt of. But Mrs. Methven remembered that 
no more. She begged pardon of God on her knees for mis- 
judging her boy, and for once in her life was ^profoundly, un- 
doubtingly happy, with a perfection and fulness of content 
which perhaps could only come after long experience of the 
reverse. After such a moment a human creature, if possible, 
should die, so as to taste nothing less sweet : for the less 
sweet, to be sure, must come back if life goes on, and at that 
moment there was not a cloud or a suggestion of darkness 
upon the firmament. She grudged falling asleep, thoiu|k 
she was very tired, and s5 losing this beautiful hour ; m 
Nature is wilful and will seldom abdicate the night for joy, 
whatever she may do for grief. 

Next morning she went to the station with him to see 
him away. Impossible to describe the devotion of all the 
officials to Lord Erradeen’s comfort on his journey. The 
stationmaster kindly came to superintend this august de- 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


57 

parture, and the porters ran about contending for his lug- 
gage with an excitement which made, at least, one old 
gentleman threaten to write to the Times. Tnere. was 
nothing but “ my lord ” and “ his lordship ” to be heard all 
over the station ; and so many persons came to bid him good- 
by and see the last of him, as they said, that the platform 
was quite inconveniently crowded. Among these, of course, 
was Captain Underwood, whose fervent — “God bless you, 
my boy^’ — drowned all other greetings. lie had, however, a 
disappointed look— as if he had failed in some object. Mrs. 
Metliven, whose faculties were all sharpened by her position, 
and who felt herself able to exercise a toleration which, in 
former circumstances, would have been impossible to her, 
permitted him to overtake her as she left the place, and 
acknowledged his greeting with more cordiality, or, at 
least, with a less foihidding civility than usual. And then a 
wonderful sight was seen in Sloebury. This hete noir of the 
feminine world, this man, whom every lady frowned upon, 
w^as seen walking along the High Street, side by side, in 
earnest conversation with one of the women who had been 
most unfavorable to him. Was she listening to an explan- 
ation, a justification, an account of himself, such as he had 
not yet given, to satisfy the requirements of the respectability 
of Sloebury? To tell the truth, Mrs. Methven now cared 
very little tor any such explanation. She did not remember, 
as she ought to have done, that other women’s sons might 
be in danger from this suspicious person, though her ovm 
was now' delivered out of his power. But she was very 
curious to know what anybody could tell her of Walter’s 
new possessions, and of the family which it was rather 
humiliating to know so little about. It was she, indeed, who 
had begun the conversation after his first remark upon 
Walter’^ departure and the loss which Avould result to Sloe- 
burv. 

You know something about the Erradeens, my son tells 
me,” she said, almost graciously. 

“ Something ! I know about as much as most people. T 
knew he was the heir, which few, except yoiirselves, did,” 
the Captain said. He cast a keen glance at her Avhen he 
said, “ except yourselves.” 

“Indeed,” said Mrs. Methven, “that is scarcely correct, 
for Walter did not know, and I had forgotten. I had, indeed, 
lost sight of my husband’s family and the succession seemed 
soTar off.” 

It was thus that she veiled her ignorance and endeavored 
to make it appear that indifference on her part, and a wise 
desire to keep Walter’s mind unaffected by such a dazzling 
possibility, had been her guiding influence. Slie spoke with 
such modest gravity that Captain Underwood, not used to 
delusion under that form, was tempted into a sort of belief. 


THE WIZARD'S SOir. 


S8 

He looked at her curiously, but her veil was down, and her 
artifice, if it was an artifice, was of a kind more delicate than 
any to which he was accustomed. 

Well ! ” he said, “ then it was not such a surprise to you 
as people thought ? Sloebury has talked of nothing else, I 
need not tell you, for several days ; and everybody was of 
opinion that it burst upon you like a thunderbolt.” 

“ Upon my son, yes,” Mrs. Methven said with a smile. 

He looked at her again, and she had the satisfaction 
of perceiving that this experienced man of the world was 
taken in. 

“ Well, then,” he said, “ you will join with me in wishing 
him well out of it : you know all the stories that are about.” 

“ I have never been at Mulmorrel— my husband’s chances 
in his own lifetime were very small, you know.” 

“ It isn’t Mulmorrel, it is that little rumed place where 
something uncanny is always ^aid to go on— oh, I don’t 
know what it is ; nobody does but the remring sovereign 
himself, and some hangers-on, I suppose. I have been there. 
I’ve seen the mysterious light, you Know. Nobody can ever 
tell what window it shows at, or if it is any window at all. 
1 was once mth the late man— the late lord, he who died the 
other day— when it came out suddenly. We were shooting 
wild fowl, and his gmi fell out of his hands. I never saw a 
man in such a funk. We were a bit late, and twilight had 
come on before we knew.” 

‘‘ So then you actually saw something of it yourself ? ” 
jMrs. Methven said. She had not the remotest idea what 
this was, but if she could find out something by any means 
she was eager enough to take advantage of it. 

“No more than that; but I can tell you this : Erradeen 
was not seen again for twenty-four hours. Whether it was 
a call to him or what it was I can’t undertake to say. He 
never would stand any questioning about it. He was a good 
fellow enough, but he never would put up with anything on 
that point. So I can only wish Walter well through it, Mrs. 
Methven. In my opinion he should have had some one with 
him ; for he is young, and, I daresay, he is fanciful.” 

“My son. Lord Erradeen,” said Mrs. Methven, with dig- 
nity, “ is man enough, I hope, to meet an emergency. Per- 
haps you think him younger than he is.” She propomrded 
this delicately as, perhaps, a sort of^xcuse for the presump- 
tion of the Christian name. 

Underwood grew very red : he Avas disappinted and irrit- 
able. “ Oh, of course, you know best,” he said. “As for my 
Lord Erradeen (I am sure I beg your pardon for forgetting 
his dignity), I daresay he is quite old enough to take care of 
himself — at least, we’ll hope so ; but a business of that kind 
will upset the steadiest brain, you know. Old Erradeen had 
not a bad spirit of his OAvn, and he funked it. I confess I 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


59 

feel a little anxious for your boy ; he’s a nice fellow, but he’s 
nervous. I was in a dozen minds to go up with him to stand 
by him ; but, perhaps, it is better not, for the best motives 
get misconstrued m this world. I can only wish liim well 
out of it,” Captain Underwood said, taking off his hat and 
making her a fine bow as he stalked away. 

It is needless to say that this mysterious intimation of dan- 
ger planted daggers in Mrs. Methven’s heart. She stopped 
aghast : and for the moment the idea of running bacK to 
the station, and signalling that the train was to be stopped 
came into her mind. Ridiculous folly! Wish him wel’l out 
of it? What, out of his great fortune, his peerage, his ele- 
vation in the world ? Mrs. Methven smiled indignantly, and 
thought of the strange manifestations under which envy 
shows itself. But she went home somewhat pale, and could 
not dismiss it from her mind as she wished to do. Well out 
of it ! And there were moments when, she remembered, she 
had surprised a very’ serious look on the countenance of jVIr. 
Milnathort. Was Walter going unwarned, in the elation 
and happy confidence of his heart, into some danger un- 
known and unforeseen? This took her confidence away 
from her, and made her nervous and anxious. But after all, 
what folly it must be : something uncanny and a mysterious 
light I These were stories for Christinas, to bring a laugh or 
a shiver from idle circles round the fire. To imagine that 
they could affect anything in real life was a kind of mad- 
ness ; an old-fashioned, exploded superstition. It was too 
ridiculous to be worthy a thought. • 


CHAPTPIR YII. 

Walter arrived in Edinburgh on a wintry morning white 
and chill. A sort of woolly shroud wrapped all the fine 
features of the landscape. He thought the dingy turrets of 
the Cal ton Jail were the Castle, and was much disappointed, 
as was natural. Arthur’s Seat and the Crags were as en- 
tirely invisible as if they had been a hundred miles away, 
and the cold crept into his very bones after his night’s jour- 
ney, although it nad been made luxuriously, in a way very 
different from his former journeyings. Also it struck him 
as strange and uncomfortable that nobody was aware of the 
change in his position, and that even the railway porter, to 
whom he gave a shilling (as a commoner he would have 
Ijeen contented with sixpence), only called him “ Sir,” and 
could not perceive that it would have been appropriate to 
say my lord. He went to a hotel, as it Avas so early, and 


6o 


THE WIZARD'S- SO H, 


found only a dingy little room to repose himself in, the more 
important part of the house being still in the hands of the 
housemaids. And when he gave his name as Lord Erradeen, 
the attendants stared at him with a sort of suspicion. Thev 
looked at his baggage curiously, and evidently asked each 
other if it was possible he could be what he claimed to be. 
Walter had a half consciousness of being an impostor, and 
trying to take these surprised people in. He thawed, hpw- 
ever, as he eat his breakfast, and the mist began to rise, 
revealing the outline of the Old Tomi. He had never been 
in Edinburgh before ; he had rarely been anywhere before. 
It was all new to him, even the sense of living in an inn. 
There was a curious freedom about it, and independence of 
all restraint which pleased him. But it was very strange to 
be absolutely unknown, to meet the gaze of faces he had 
never seen before, and to be obliged always to explain who 
he was. It was clear that a servant was a thing quite ne- 
cessary to a man who called himself by a title, a servant not 
so much to attend upon him as to answer for him, and be a 
sort of guarantee to the world. How that he was here in 
Edinburgh, he was not quite sure Avhat to do with himself. 
It was too early to do anjdhing. He could not disturb old 
Milnathort at such ail hour. He mast let the old man get 
to his office, and read his letters before he could descend 
upon him. So that on the whole Walter, though sustained 
by the excitement of his new position, was altogether chilled 
and not at all comfortable, feeling those early hours of grim 
daylight hang very heavily on his hands. He went out after 
be had refreshed and dressed— and strolled about the fine 
but foreign street. It looked quite foreign to his inexpe- 
rienced eyes. The Castle soared vaguely through the gray 
mist ; the irregular line of roofs and spires crowning the 
ridge threw itself up vaguely against a darker gray behind. 
There was a river of mist between him and that ridge, run- 
ning deep in the hollow, underneath the nearer bank which 
was tufted v/ith spectral bushes and trees, and with still 
more spectral white statues glimmering through. On the 
other side of the street, more cheerful and apparent, were 
the jewellers’ shops full of glistening pebbles and national 
ornaments, Everybody knows that it is not these shops 
alone, but others of every luxurious kind that form the 
glory of Prince’s Street. But Walter was a stranger and 
foreigner ; and in the morning mists the shining store of 
. cairngorms was the most cheerful sight that met his eye. 

Mr. Milnathort’s office was in a handsome square, with 
a garden in the centre of it, and another statue holding 
possession of the garden. For the first time since he left 
home, Walter felt a little thrill of his new importance when 
he perceived the respectful curiosity produced among the 
clerks by the statement qf his name. They a-sked his lord- 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


6i 

ship to step in with an evident sensation. And for Walter 
himself to look into that office where his mother had so 
strongly desired that he should find a place, had the most 
curious effect. He felt for the moment as if he were one of 
the serious young men peeping from beyond the wooden 
railing that inclosed the office, at the fortunate youth whose 
circumstances were so different from their own. He did not 
realize at the moment the unfailing human complacency 
which would have come to his aid in such circumstances, 
and persuaded him that the gifts of fortune had nothing to 
do with real superiority. He thought of the possible 
reflections upon himself of the other young fellows in their 
lowly estate as if he had himself been making them. He 
was sorry for them all, for the contrast they must draw, and 
the strange sense of human inequality that they must feel. 
He was no better than they were— who could tell ? perhaps 
not half as good. He felt that to feel this was a due tribute 
from Lord Erradeen in his good fortune to those who might 
have been Walter Methven’s fellow clerks, but v/hohad 
never had any chance of being Lord Erradeen. And then he 
thought what a good thing it was that he had never written 
that letter to Mr. Milnathort, offering himself for a desk m 
the office. He had felt really guilty on the subject at the 
time. He had felt that it was miserable of him to neglect 
the occasion thus put before him of gaining a livelihood. 
Self-reproach, real and unmistakable, had been in his mind ; 
and yet what a good thmg he had not done it : and how 
little one knows what is going to happen ! These were very 
ordinary reflections, not showing much depth ; but it must 
be recollected that W alter was still in a sort of primary 
state of feeling, and had not had time to reach a profounder 
level. 

Mr. Milnathort made haste to receive him, coming out of 
his own room on purpose, and giving him the warmest 
welcome. 

“ I might have thought you would come by the night 
train. You are not old enough to dislike night travelling as 
1 do ; but I Vvdll take it ill, and so will my sister, if you stay 
in a hotel, and your room ready for you in our little place. 
I think you will be more comfortable with us, though we 
have no grandeur to surround you with. My sister has a 
great wish to make your acquaintance, my Lord Erradeen. 
She has just a wonderful acquaintance with the family, and 
it was more through her than any one that I knew just 
where to put my hand upon you, when the time came.” 

“ I did not like to disturb you so early,” W alter said. 

“ Well, perhaps there is something in that. We are not 
very early birds : and as a ihatter of fact, Alison did not 
expect you till about seven o'clock at night. And here am I 
in the midst of my day’s work. But I’ll tell you what I’ll 


62 


THE WIZARHS SOH 

do for you. AVe’ll j^o round to the club, and there your 
young lordship will make acquaintance with somebody that 
can show you something of Edinburgh. You have never 
been here before ? It is a great pity that there’s an easterly 
haar, which is bad both for you and the objects you are 
wanting to see. However, it is lifting, and we’ll get some 
luncheon, and then I will put you in the way. That is the 
best thing I can do for you. Malcolm, you will send down 
all the documents relative to his lordship’s affairs to Moray 
Idace, this afternoon ; and you can tell old Symington to be 
in attendance in case Lord Erradeen should wish to see him. 
That is your cousin, the late lord’s body servant. He is a 
man of great experience, and you might wish—; but all that 
can be settled later on. If Drysdales should send over about 
that case of theirs, ye will say, Malcolm, that I shall be here 
not later than three in the afternoon ; and if old JBlairallan 
comes fyking, ye can say I am giving the case my best at- 
tention ; and if it’s that big north-country fellow about his 
manse and his augmentation ” 

“ I fear that I am unpardonable,” said Walter, “ in inter- 
fering with your valuable time.” 

“ Yothing of the sort. It is not every day that a Lord 
Erradeen comes into his inheritance ; and as there are, may- 
] )e, things not over cheerful to tell you at night, we may as 
well make the best of it in the morning,” said the old lawyer. 
He got himself into his coat as he spoke, slowly, not ivith- 
oiit an effort. The sun was struggling through the mist as 
they went out again into the streets, and the midday gun 
from the Castle helped for a moment to disperse the haar, 
and show the noble cliff on which it rears its head aloft. Mr. 
Milanthort xiaused to look with tender pride along the line — 
the houses and spires lifting out of the clouds, the sunshine 
breaking throiigli the crown of St. Giles’s hovering like a 
sign of rank over the head of the throned city, awakened in 
him that keen x}leasure and elation in the beauty of his 
native place v/hich is nowhere more warmly felt than in 
Edinburgh. He waved his hand toward the Old Town in 
triumph. “ Y ou may have seen a great deal, but ye will 
never have seen anything finer than that,” he said. 

“ I have seen very little,” said Walter ; “but everybody 
has heard of Edinburgh, so that it does not take one by sur- 
prise.” 

“Ay, that is very wisely said. If it took you by surprise, 
and you had never heard of it before, the world would just 
go daft over it. However, it is a drawback of a great repu- 
tation that ye never come near it with mind clear.” Having 
said this the old gentleman dismissed the subject with a 
wave of his hand, and said, in a different tone. “You will 
be very curious about the family secrets you are coming into, 
Lord Erradeen,” 


THE WIZARDS SOH. 63 

Walter laughed. 

“ I am coming to them with my mind clear,” he said. “ I 
know nothing about them. But I don’t believe much in 
family secrets. They belong to the middle ages. Nowadays 
we have nothing to conceal.” 

Mr. Milanthort listened to this blasphemy with a counte-. 
nance in which displeasure' struggled with that supreme 
sense that the rash young man would soon know bettei*, 
which disarms reproof. He shook his head. 

“ You may say we can conceal but little,” he said, “ which 
is true enougii, but not altogether true either. Courage is a 
fine thing. Lord Erradeen, and I am always glad to see it ; 
and if you have your imagination under control, that will do 
ye still better service. In most cases it is not only what we 
see, but what we think we are going to see, that daunts us. 
Keep you your head cool, that is your best defence in all 
emergencies. It is better to be too bold than not to be bold 
enough, notwithstanding the poet’s warning to yon warrior- 
maid of his.” 

“These last words made Walter stare, for he was not 
very learned in poetry at the best, and ^vas totally unpre- 

S ired to hear Spenser from the lips of the old Scottish lawyer. 

e was silent for a little in mere perplexity, and then he 
said, with a laugh,— 

“You speak of danger as if we were on the eve of a battle. 
Are there giants to encounter or magicians? One would 
think we were living in the dark ages,” Walter cried with a 
little impatience. 

]\Ir. Milnathort said nothing more. He led the young 
man into one of the great stone palaces which form the line 
of Prince’s Street, and which was then the seat of the old 
original club of Edinburgh society. Here Walter found 
himself in the midst of a collection of men with marked and 
individual faces, each one of whom ought to be somebody, 
lie thought. Many of them were bound about the throat 
with white ties, like clergymen, but they did not belong to 
tliat profession. It gave the young man a sense of his own 
importance, with generally deserted him in IMr. Milnathort’s 
presence, and of which he felt himself to stand in need, to 
perceive that he excited a great deal of interest among these 
grave and potent signors. There was a certain desire visible 
to make his acquaintance and to ascertain his political opin- 
ions, of which Walter was scarcely aware as yet whether he 
had any. It was suggested at once that he should be put u]> 
for the" club, and invitations to dinner began to be showered 
upon him. He was stopped short in his replies to those cor- 
dial beginnings of acquantance by^ Mr. Milnathort, wlio 
calmly assumed the guidance of his movements. “Lord 
Erradeen,” he said, “is on his way West. Business will not 
permit him to tarry at this moment. We hope he will be 


THE W/ZARHS SON. 


64 

back ere long, and perhaps stay a while in Edinburgh, and 
see what is to be s^en in the way of society.” This summary 
way of taking all control of his own movements from him 
astounded Walter so much that he merely stared at his old 
tyrant or vizier, and in his confusion of suriuise and anger 
did not feel capable of saying anything, which, after all, was 
the most dignified Vv- ay \ for he said to himself, it was not 
necessary to yield implicit obedience even if he refrained 
from open protest upon these encroachments on his liberty, 
in the meantime it was evident that the old lawyer did not 
intend him to have any liberty at all. lie produced out of 
the recesses of the club library a beaming little man in spec- 
tacles, to whom he committed the charge of the young 
stranger. 

“Mr. Bannatyne,” he said, “knows Edinburgh as well as 
T know my chambers, and he will just take you round what 
is most worth seemg.” 

When W alter attempted to escape with a civil regret to 
give his new acquaintance trouble he was put down by both 
with eagerness. 

“ The Old Town is just the breath of my nostrils,” said 
the little antiquary. 

“ It cannot be said that it’s a fragrant breath,” said old 
Milnathort ; “ but since that is so. Lord Erradeen, vou would 
not deprive our frifend of such a pleasure : and weul look for 
you by five or six at Moray Place, or earlier if you weary, for 
it’s soon dark at this time of the year.” 

To find himself thus arrested in the first day of his eman- 
cipation and put into the hands of a conductor was so an- 
noying yet so comic that Walter’s resentment evaporated in 
the ludicrous nature of the situation and his consciousness 
that otherwise he would not know what to do with himself-. 
But sight-seeing requires a warmer inspiration than this, 
and even the amusement of beholding his companion’s en- 
thusiasm over all the dark entries and wornout mscriptions 
was not enough to keep W alter’s interest alive. His own 
life at this moment was so much more interesting than any- 
thing else, so much more important than those relics of a 
past which had gone away altogether out of mortal ken. 
When the blood is at high pressure in our veins, and the 
future lying all before us, it is very difficult to turn back, 
and force our eager eyes into contemplation of scenes with 
which we ourselves iiave little or no connection. The anti- 
quary, however, was not to be baulked. He looked at his 
young companion with his head on one side like a critical 
bird. “You are paying no attention to me,” he said half 
, pathetically ; “but ’cod, man (I beg your pardon, my lord!), 
ye shall be interested before I’m done.” With this threat he 
hurried Walter along to the noisest and most squalid part 
of that noble but miserable street which is the pride of 


THE WIZARD’S SON. 


6S 

Edinburgh, and stopped short before a small but deep door- 
way, entering from a short flight of outside stairs. The door 
was black with age and neglect, and showed a sort of black 
cave withm, out of whicli all kind of dingy figures were 
fluttering. The aspect of the muddy stairs and ragged way- 
farers was miserable enougli, but the mouldings of the lintel, 
and the spiral staircase half visilile at one side, were of a 
grim antiquity, and so was the lofty tenement above, with 
its many rows of windows and high-steppe,d gable. 

“Now, just look here,” said Mr. Bannatyne, “ these arms 
will tell their own story.” 

There was a projecting boss of rude, half-obliterated 
carving on the door. ' 

“ I cannot make head nor tail of it,” said the young man ; 
his patience was beginning to give way. 

‘^Lord Erradeen,” cried the other with enthusiasm, 
“this is worth your fattest farm ; it is of more interest than 
half your inheritance ; it is as historical as Holyrood. You 
are .pist awfully insensible you young men, and think as 
little of the relics that gave you your consequences in the 
world—!” 1 le paused a little in the fervor of his indigna- 
tion, then addecl— “ But there are allowances to be made for 
you as you were bred in England, and perhaps are little 
acquainted— My lord, this is Me’even’s Close, V)earing the 
name even now in its decay. It was my Lord Methven’s 
lodging in the old time. Bless me ! can your young eyes 
not read the motto that many peoxjle have found so signifi- 
cant ? Look here,” cried Walter’s cicerone, tracing with his 
stick the haif-etfaced letters, “ Baithe Sune and Syne.” 

Young Lord Erradeen began, as was natural, to feel 
ashamed of himself. He felt a pang of discomfort too, for 
this certainly bore no resemblance to the trim piece of 
modern Latin al)out the conquering i)Ower of virtue which 
Avas on his father’s seal. The old possibility that he might 
turn out an impostor after all gleamed across his mind. 
“ Does this belong to me?” he added with some eagerness, 
to veil these other and less easy sentiments. 

“ I know nothing about that,” said Mr. Jtannatyne \Adth a 
slight tone of contempt. “ But it Avas the Lord of Methven’s 
lodging in the days Avhen Scots lords lived in the Canon- 
gate of Edinburgh.” Then he added, “There is a flue 
mantelpiece upstairs AAdiich you had better see. Oh no])ody 
Avill have any objection, a silA^er key opens every door here- 
about. If it should happen to be yours, my lord, and T Avere 
you, I’ said the eager little man, “ I Avould clear out the whole 
clanjamfry and have it thoroughly cleaned, and make a 
museum (if the place. You Avould pick up many a curious 
l)it as tlu; auld houses go down. This Avay, to the right, and 
mimi the hole in the wall. The doors are all carved, it yon 


66 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


can see them for the dirt, and you’ll not often see a hand- 
somer room.” 

It was confusing at first to emerge out of the gloom of 
the stairs into the light of the great room, with its row of 
windows guiltless ot either blind or curtain, which was in 
possession of a group of ragged children, squatting about in 
front of the deep, old-fashioned chimney, over which a series 
of elaborate carvings rose to the roof. I'he room had once 
been parallel, but half of the woodivork had been dragged 
down, and the rest was in a deplorable state. The contrast 
of the squalor and wretchedness about him, with the frame- 
work of the ancient, half-ruined grandeur, at once excited 
and distressed Walter. There was a bed, or rather a heap 
of something covered with the bright patches of an old 
quilt, in one corner, in another an old corner cupboard fixed 
into the wall, a rickety table and two chairs in the middle of 
the room. The solemn, unsheltered window, like so many 
hollow, staring eyes, gazed out through the cold veil of the 
mist upon the many windows of an equally tall house on the 
other side of the street, the view being broken by a project- 
ing pole thrust forth from the middle one, upon Avhicm some 
dingy clothes were hanging to dry. The children hmig to- 
gether, getting behind the biggest of them, a ragged, hand- 
some girl, with wild, elf locks, who confronted the visitors 
Avith an air of defiance. The flooring was broken in many 
places, and dirty beyond description. Walter felt it intoler- 
able to be here, to breathe the stifling atmosphere, to con- 
template this hideous form of decay. He thought some one 
was looking at him from behind the torn panels. “ This is 
horrible,” he said. “ I hope I haA^e nothing to do Avith it.” 
Disgust and a shivering, visionary dread Avas in his voice. 

‘^Your race has had plenty to do with it, said the anti- 
quary. “ It Avas here, they say, that theAvarlock-lord played 
most of his pliskies. It was his ‘ Avarm study of deals ’ like 
that they made for John Knox on the other side of the street. 
These Avails have seen strange sights ; and if you believe in 
Avitchcraft, as one of your name ought ” 

“ Why should one of my name believe in witchcraft ? Jt 
appears,’'^ hq said, with petulance, “that I know very little 
about my name.” 

“ So I should have said,” said the antiquary, dryly. “ But 
no doubt you have heard of your great ancestor, the waiiock- 
lord ? I am not sayilig that I admire the character in the 
abstract ; but an ancestor like that is fine for a family. He 
was mixed up in all the doings of the time, and he made his 
own out of every one of them. And then he’s a grand his- 
torical problem to the present day, which is no small distinc- 
tion. You never heard of that? Oh, my lord, that’s just 
not possible! He was the one whose death was never 
proved nor nothing about him, where he was buried, or the 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


67 

nature of his end, or if he ever came to an end at all ; hilS son 
would never take the title, and forbade his son to do it ; but 
by the time you have got to the second generation you are 
not minding so much. I noticed that the late lord would 
never enter into conversation on the subject. The family 
has always been touchy about it. It was the most complete 
disappearance I can recollect hearing of. Most historical 
puzzles clear themselves up in time ; but this never was 
cleared up. Of course it has given rise to legends. You 
mil perhaps.be more interested m the family legends. Lord 
Erradeen ? ” 

“ Not at all,” said Walter, abruptly. “ I have told you I 
know very little about the family. What is it we came to 
see?— not this wretched place which makes me sick. The 
past should carry off its snell with it, and not leave these old 
clothes to rot here.” 

“Oh!” cried little Mr. Bannatyiie, with a shudder. “I 
never suspected I was bringing in an iconoclast. That 
mantelpiece is a grand work of art. Lord Erradeen. Look 
at that serpent twisted about among the drapery — you’ll not 
see such work now; and the ermine on that mantle just 
stands out in every hair, for all the grime and the smoke. 
It is the legend beneath the shield that is the m’ost interest- 
ing in the point of view of the family. It’s a sort of rhyming 
slogan, or rather it’s an addition to the old slogan, ‘ Live, 
Me^even,’ which everybody knows.” 

Walter felt a mingled attraction and repulsion which 
held him there undecided in front of the great, old fireplace, 
like Hercules or any other hero between the symbolical good 
and evil. He had a great curiosity to know what ail this 
meant mingled with an angry disinclination impossible to 
put into words. Mr. Bannatyne, who, of course, knew 
nothing of what was going on in his mind, took upon himself 
the congenial task of tracing the inscription out. It was 
doggerel, bad enough to satisfy every aspiration of an anti- 
quary. It was as follows,— 

“ Ne fleyt atte Helle, nefond for Heeven, 

Live, Me’even.” 

“ You will see how it fits in with the other motto,” cried 
the enthusiast. “ ‘ Baithe Sune and Syne,’ which has a grand 
kind of indifference to time and all its changes that just de- 
liglits me. And the other has the same sentiment. 
‘Neither frightened for hell nor keen about heaven.^ 
It is the height of impiety,” he said, with a subdued chuckle ; 
“but that’s not inappropriate— it’s far from inappropri- 
ate ; it is just in fact, what might have been expected. The 
warlock lord ” 

“ I hope you won’t think me ungrateful,” cried Walter, 


68 


THE WTZARHS so Hi 


“ ])iit T don’t think T want to know any more about that old 
ruffian. There is something in the place that oppresses me.” 
He took out from his pocket a handful of coins. (It was with 
the pleasure of novelty that he shook them together, gold 
and silver in one shining heap, and threw half a dozen of them 
to the little group l-)efore the fire.) “ For Heaven’s sake let 
us get out of this ! ” he said, nervously. He could not have 
explained the sentiment of horror, almost of fear, that was 
in his mind. “ If it is mine,” he said, as they went down the 
spiral stair, groping against the black humid wall, “ I shall 
l)ull it down and 1 't in some air and clear the filth away.” 

“ God bless me ! ” cried the antiquary in horror and dis- 
tress, “ you will never do that. The finest street in Chris- 
tendom, and one of the best houses ! Xo, no. Lord Erra- 
deen, you will never do that ! ” 

When Mr. Bannatyne got back to the club, he expressed 
an oranion of Lord Efradeen, which we are glad to believe 
further experience induced him to modify. He declared that 
old Bob Milnathort had given him such a handful as he had 
not undertaken for years. “Just a young Cockney!” he 
said, “ a stupid Englishman ! with no more understanding 
of history, or even of the share his own race has had in it 
than that collie dog— indeed. Yarrow is far more intelligent, 
and a brute that is conscious of a fine descent. I am not 
saying that there are not fine lads among some of those Eng- 
lish bred young men, and some that have the sense to like 
old-fashioned things. But this young fellow is just a Cock- 
ney, he is just a young cynic. Pull down the house, said 
he'V Spoil the first street in Europe ! We’ll see what the 
Town Council— not to say the Woods and Forests— will say 
to that, my young man ! And I hope I have Bailie Brown 
under my thumb ! ” the enraged antiquary cried. 

Meanwhile Walter made his way through the dark streets 
in a tremor of excitement and dislike of which he could give 
no explanation to himself. Why should the old house have af- 
fected him so strongly ? There was no reason fox* it that he 
knew. Perhaps there was something in the suddenness of 
the transition from the comfortable English prose of Sloebury 
to all those old world scenes and suggestions which had a 
disenchanting effect upon him. He had not been aware that 
lie was more matter ot fact than another, less likely to be af- 
fected by I'omance and histoiical associations. But so it had 
turned out. The grimy s^^ualor of the place, the bad atmos- 
phere, the odious associationsj had either destroyed for him 
all the more attractive prejudices of long family descent, and 
a name which had descended through many generations— 
or else, something more subtile still, some internal influence 
had communicated that loathing and sickness of the, heart. 
Which was it ? He could not tell. He said to himself, with 
a sort of scorn at himself, that probably the bourgeois atmos- 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


69 

phere of Sloebury had made him incapable of those imagin- 
ative flights for which the highest and the lowest classes 
liave a mutual aptitude. The atmosphere of comfort and 
respectability was against it. Tliis idea rather exasperated 
him, and lie dwelt upon it with a natural perversity because 
he hated to identify himself as one of that stolid middle 
class which is above or beneath fanciful impulses. Then he 
began to wonder whether all this might not be part of a 
deep-laid scheme on the part of old Milnathort to get him, 
Walter, under his power. No doubt it was arranged that he 
should be brought to that intolerable place, and all the spells 
of the past called forth to subdue him by his imagination if 
never through his intellect. What did they take him for ? 
Tie was no credulous Celt, but a sober-minded Englishman, 
not likely to let his imagination run away with him, or to be 
led by the nose by any diablerie^ hoAvever skilful. They 
might make up their minds to it, that their wiles of this 
kind would meet with no success. Walter was by no means 
sure who he meant by or why they should endeavor to 
get him into their power ; but he wanted something to find 
fault with— some way of shaking oft* the burden of a mental 
weight which he did not understand, which filled him with 
discomfort and new sensations which he could not explain. 
He could almost have supposed (bad he believed in mesmer- 
ism, according to the description given of it in fiction—) that 
he was under some mesmeric influence, and that some ex- 
pert, some adept, was trying to decoy him within some fatal 
circle of impression. But he set his teeth and all his power 
of resistance against it. They should not find him an easy 
prey. 


CHAl’TER VIH. 

The drawing-room in Moray Idace seemed in the partial 
gloom very large and lofty. It must be remembered that 
Walter Avas accustomed only to the comparatwely small 
rooms of an English country toAvn where there was nobody 
who was very rich— and the solid, tall Edinburgh houses 
were imposing to him. There was no light but which came 
from a blazing fire, and which threw an irregular ruddy il- 
lumination upon everything, but no distinct vision. He saw 
tall windows indefinitely draped, and looking not unlike 
three colossal women in abundant vague robes standing 
against tlie Avail. In a smaller room behind, Avhich opened 
from this, the firelight was still brighter, but still only par- 
tially lit up the darkness. It shoAved, however, a table 
placed near the fire, and gloAving AA'ith brighter reflections 
from its sih^er and china ; and just beyond that, out of the 


THE WIZARD'S SOH. 


70 

depths of what looked like an elongated easy chair, a piece 
of whiteness, which was a female countenance Walter, 
confused at his entrance, made out, after a moment, that it 
was a lady, half reclining on a sort of invalid chaise longue^ 
who raised herself slightly to receive liim, with a flicker 01 
a pair of white, attenuated hands. “ You are very Avelcome, 
Lord Erradeen,” she said, in a sweet, feeble voice. “ Will 
you excuse my rising— for I’m a great . invalid— and come 
and sit down here beside me? I have been looking 
for you this half-hour past.” The hand which she held out 
to him was so thin that he scarcely felt its light i)ressure. 
“ If you have no objection,” said Miss Milnathort, we will 
do with tlie firelight for a little longer. It is my favorite 
li^ht. My brother sent me word I was to expect you, and 
Jitter your cold walk you will be glad of a cup of tea.” She 
did not pause for any reply, but went on, drawing the table 
towards her, and arranging everything with the skill of an 
accustomed hand. “ I am just a crip^e creature,” she said. 
‘‘ I have had to learn to serve myself in this way, andliobert 
is extraordinarily thoughtful. There is not a mechanical 
convenience invented but I have it before it is well out of 
the brain that devised it ; and that is how I got on so well 
with no backbone to speak of. All thfs is quite new to you,” 
she said, quickly shaking off one subject and taking up an- 
other, with a little swift movement of her hand. 

“ Do you mean— Edinburgh, or ” 

“ I mean everything,” said the lady. “ Edinburgh will 
be just a bit of scenery in the drama that is opening upon 
you, and here am I just another tableau. I can see it all 
myself with your eyes. You can scarcely Aell if it is real.” 

That IS true enough,” said Walter, “ and the scenery all 
turns upon the plot so far : which is what it does not always 
do upon the stage.” 

tt “^y-”said Miss Milnathort, with a tone of surprise, 
and lioiy may that be? I don’t see any particular sig- 
nificance 111 Holy rood. It is where all you English strangers 
go, as if Edinburgli had no meaning but Queen JMary.” * 

We did not go to Hqlyrood. We went to Lord Meth- 
ven s Lodging, as I hear it is called : which was highly jip- 
propriate.” 

T 1' mean to tell me that 

J ohn Lannatyne had that sense in him ? I will remember 
that the next tune Robert calls him an auid fozzle. And so 
you saw the lodgnig of Methven ? I have never seen it my- 
selr. Did it not make your heart sick to see all the poverty 
and misery in that awful street? Oh yes, I’m told it’s a 
grand street : but I never have the heart to go into it. I 
® place should die with the age that gave it birth.” 

Phis Avas a sentiment so entirely unlike what Walter had 
expected to hear, that for the moment it took from him all 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


71 

pov/er of reply. “ That would be hard upon antiquity,” he 
said at length, “ and I don’t know what the artists would 
say, or our friend Mr. Bannatyne.” 

“ He would have me burnt for a Avitch,” the invalid said, 
with a SAveet little laugh ; and then slie added, “ Ah, it is 
very Avell to talk about art ; but there Avas great sense hi 
that saying of the old Keformers, ‘ Ding doAvn the nest, and 
the croAvs Avill flee aAvay.’ ” 

‘"I expected,” said Walter, “ to find you full of reverence 
for the past, and faith in mysteries and* family secrets, and 
—how can 1 tell ?~ghosts perhaps.” He laughed, but the in- 
valid did not echo his laiigli. And this brought a little chill 
and check to his satisfaction. The sense that one has sud- 
denly struck a jarring note is highly uncomfortable when 
one IS young. Walter put liack liis chair a little, not reflect- 
ing that the flrelight revealed very little of his sudden 
flush. 

“ I have had no experience in Avhat you call ghosts,” she 
said, gravely. “ 1 cannot, to tell the truth, see any argument 
against them, except just that Ave don’t see them ; and 1 
think that’s a pity tor my part.” 

To this, as it was a view of the subject equally neAv to 
him, Walter made no reply. 

“Jake you care. Lord Erradeen,” sheTesumed hastily, 
“ not to let yourself be persuaded to adopt that sort of no- 
menclature.” There was a touch of Scotch in her accent that 
naturalised the long word, and made it quite in keeping. 
“ Conclude nothing to be a ghost till yon cannot account for 
it in any other way. There are many things that are far 
more. surprising,” she said; then, shaking off the subject 
once more Avith that little movement of her head, You are 
not taking your tea. You must have had a tiring day after 
travelling all night. That is one of the modern fashions I 
cannot make up my mind to. They tell me the raihvay is 
not so Avearying as the long coach journeys aa'c used to make 
in the old time.” 

“But you— can scarcely remember the old coach jour- 
neys ? Why, my mother ” 

“ Very likely I am older than your mother ; and I rarely 
budge out of this corner. I haA^e never !?een your mother, 
but I remember Captain Methven long long ago, Avho Avas 
not unlike the general outline of you, so far as I can make 
out. When the lights come you Avill see I am an old Avoman. 
It is .just possible that this is Avhy I am so fond of the fire- 
light,” she said Avith a laugh ; “ for I’m really very young 
though I Avas born long ago. Robert and me, Ave remember 
all our games and plays in a Avay that people that have had 
ciiiidren of their OAvn never do. We are just boy and girl 
still, and I’ve knoAvn us after a long talk, forget ourselves 
altogether, and talk of papa and mamma ! ” She clapped 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


72 

her hands together at this, and went into a peal of genuine 
laughter, su^ as is always infectious. Walter laughed too, 
but in a half-embarrassed, half-unreal way. All was so 
strange to him, and this curious introduction into a half- 
seen, uncomprehended world the most curious of all. 

“ 1 would like to know a little about yourself,” she re- 
sumed, after a moment. You were not in the secret that 
it was you who Avere the kin ? It was strange your father 
should' have left you m the dark.” 

“I can’t remember my father,” said Walter, hastily. 

“That makes little dilference; but you were always a 
strange family. Now you, Robert tells me, you’re not so 
much of an Erradeen — you take after your mother’s side. 
And I’m very very glad to hear it. It will perhaps be you, 
if you have tlie courage, that will put a stop to— many things. 
There are old rhymes upon that subject, but you will put 
little faith in old rhymes ; I none at all. . I believe they are 
lust made up long after the occasion, just for the sake of the 
fun, or perhaps because some one is pleased with himself to 
have found a rhyme. Now that one that they tell me is in 
Canongfite— that about ‘ Live’ Me’eA^en — ’ ” 

“ I thought you said you didn’t know it ? ” 

“ I have never seen it ; but you don’t suppose I am ignor- 
ant of the subject. Lord Erradeen? Do you know I have 
been here stretched out in my chair these thirty years? and 
what else could I give my attention to, considering all 
things? Well, I do not believe in that. Oh, it’s far too pat! 
When a thing is true it is not just so terrible in keeping. 1 
believe it was made up by somebody that knew the story 
just as Ave do ; probably a hundred years or more after the 
event.” 

Walter did not say that he Avas quite unacquainted with 
the event. TIis interest perhaps, though he Avas not aAvare 
of it, Avas a little less A\"arm since he knew that Miss Milna- 
thort Avas his mother’s contemporary rather than his oAvn ; 
but he had come to the conclusion that it Avas b’etter not to 
ask any direct questions. The light had faded much, and 
Avas now nothing more than a steady red gloAV fti place of 
the leaping and blaming of the flames. He scarcely saAV his 
entertainer at all. There Avere tAvo spots of brightness 
AAdiich moved occasionally, and Avhich represented her face 
and the hands Avhich she liad clasped together (AA^hen they 
Avere not flickering about in incessant gesture) in her lap. 
But there Avas something altogether quaint and strange in 
the situation. It did not irritate him as the men had done! 
And then she had the good sense to agree with him in 
some respects, though the melange of opinions in her was 
remarkable, and he did not understand Avhat she Avould be 
at. There was an interval of quiet in which neither of them 


THE WIZARHE SON. 


73 

said anything*, and tlTen a large step was audible eoniing 
slowly upstairs, and tliroiigh the other drawing-room. 

“ Here is Robert,” the invalid said with a smile in her 
voice. It was nothing but a tall shadow that appeared, 
looming huge in the ruddy light. 

“Have you got Lord Erradeen with you, Alison? and 
how are you and he getting on together?” said old Milna- 
thort’s voice. 

Walter rose hastily to his feet with a feeling that other 
elements less agreeable were at once introduced, and that 
his pride was affronted by being discussed in that easy 
manner over his head. 

“We are getting on fine, Robert. He is just as agreeable 
as you say, and 1 have great hopes will be the man. But you 
are late, and it will soon be time for dinner. I would advise 
you to show our young gentleman to his room, and see that 
he’s comfortable. And after dinner, when you have had 
your good meal, we’ll have it all out with him.” 

“ I am thinking, Alison, that there is a good deal we must 
go over that will be best between him and me.” 

“ That must be as you please, Robert, my man,” said the 
lady, and Walter felt like a small child who is being discussed 
over his head by grown up persons, whom he feels to be his 
natural enemies. He rose willingly, yet with unconsci(ms 
offence, and followed Ids host to his I’oom, inwardly indig- 
nant with himself for having thus impaired his own liberty 
by forsaking his inn. The room, however, was luxuriously 
comfortable, shining with firelight, and a grave and respect- 
able servant in mourning, was arranging his evening clothes^ 
upon the bed. 

“ This is Symington,” said iVIr. ^lilnathort, “ he was your 
late cousin’s body-servant. Tlie late Lord Erradeen gave 
him a very warm recommendation. There might be things 
perhaps in which he wovdd be of use.” 

“Thanks,” said Walter, impulsively. “T have a man 
coming. I am afraid the recommendation is a little too 
late.” 

This unfortunately was Jiot true ; but tlK* yoinig man felt 
that to allow Idmself to be saddled with a sort of governor 
in the shape of tlie late lord’s servant was more than could 
be required of him; and that he m\ist assert himself before 
it was too late. 

“ You will settle that at your pleasure, my lord,” said old 
Milnathort, and he went away, shutting the door carefully, 
his steady, slow step echoing along the passage. The man 
was not apparently in the least daunted by Walter’s irrita- 
tion. He went on mechanically, lightly brushing out a 
crease, and unfolding the coat with that affectionate care 
which a good sei A^ant bestows, upon good clothes. Walter 


74 


THE wizard: S SOM. 


longed to liavc I’H'oiigiit Ids old coat witli liiiii that every- 
thing sliould not have been so distressingly new. 

“ That will do,” he said, “ that will Cio. It is a pity to give 
you so much trouble when, as 1 tell you, I have another mini 
engaged.” 

“ It is no trouble, my lord ; it is a pleasure. I came, out 
of attachment to the family. I’ve been many years about 
my late lord. And however you may remind yourself that 
you are but a servant, and service is no heritage, yet it’s not 
easy to keep yourself from becoming attached?’ 

“My good man,” said Walter, half impatient, half touched. 
“ You never saw me in your life before. I can’t see how you 
can have any attachment to me.” 

Symington had a long face, with a somewhat lugubrious 
expression, contradicted by the t^vinkle of a pair of humor- 
ous, deep set eyes. He gave a glance up at Walter from 
where he stood fondling the lappels of the new coat. 

“ There are many kinds of attachments, my lord,” lie said 
oracularly ; “ some to the person and some to the race. For 
a number of years past I nave, so to speak, .just identified 
myself with the Erradeens. It’s not common in England, so 
far as I can hear, but it’s just our old Scots weij. I will take 
no other service. So, being free, if your lordship pleases, I 
Avill just look after your lordship’s tnings till the other man 
comes.” 

Walter perceived in a moment by the way Symington 
said these Avords that he had no faith whatever in the other 
man. He submitted accordingly to the ministrations of the 
family retainer, Avith a great deal of his old impatience, tem- 
pered by a sense of the humor of the situation. It seemed 
that he Avas never to have any control over himself. He had 
barely escaped from the tutelage of home when he fell into 
this other Avhich was much more rigid. “ Poor mother ! ” he 
said to himself, Avith an affectionate recollection of her many 
cares, her anxious Avatchfulness ; and laughed to himself at 
the thought that she Avas being avenged. 

Mr. Milnathort’s table was handsome and liberal; the 
meal even too abundant for the solitary pair AAho sat alone 
at a corner of a large table, amid a blaze of light. Miss JSIil- 
nathort did not appear. 

“ She never comes doAvn. She has never sat doAvn at 
table since she had her accident, and that is thirty years 
since.” 

There Avas something in Mr. IMilnathort’s tone as he said 
this that made Walter believe that her accident too had 
something to do Avith the family. Everything tended to- 
Avards that, or sprang from it. Had he been to the manner 
born, this Avould no doubt have seemed to him natural 
enough ; but as it was he could not keep himself from the 
idea either that he Avas being laughed at, or that some de- 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


75 

sign was hidden beneath^this constant reference. The din- 
ner, however, went off very quietly. It was impossible to 
discuss anything of a private charaeter in the presence of 
Milnathort’s serious butler, and of the doubly grave appari- 
tion of Symington, who helped the other to wait. 

Walter had never dined s so solemnly before. It must be 
added, however, that he had seldom dined so well. It was a 
pity that he was so little knowing in this particular. Mr. 
Milnathort encouraged him through the repast by judicious 
words of advice and recommendation. He was very genial 
and expansive at this most generous moment of tne day. 
Fond 01 good fare himself he liked to communicate and re- 
commend it, and Walter’s appetite was excellent, if perhaps 
his taste was uncultivated. The two noiseless attendants 
circulating about the table served them with a gravity in 
perfect keeping with the importance “of the event, which was 
to the old lawyer the most interesting of the day. 

When they were left alone finally, the aspect of affairs 
changed a little. Mr. Milnathort cleared his throat, and laid 
aside his napkin. He said,— 

“ We must not forget. Lord Erradeen, that we have, a 
great deal of business to get through. But you have had a 
fatiguing day, and probably very little sleep last night” — 

“I slept veryw^ell, I assure you,” Walter replied, cheer-. 

‘^Ay, ay, you are young,” said Mr. Milnathort, with a half 
sigh. Still all the financial statements, and to give you a 
just view of all that’s coming to you, will take time. v\ ith 
your permission we’ll keep that till to-morrow. But there s 
just a thing or tw’'o — . Lord save us!” he cried suddenly, 
“ you’re not the kind of person for this. There is many a 
one I know that w'ould have liked it all the better— till they 
knew— for what’s attached to it. I thought as much whei' 1 
first set eyes upon you. This wdll be one that will not taxe 
it all for gospel, I said to myself— one that will set up his 
own judgment, and demand the reason why.” 

Walter, a little uncertain at first how to take this, ci.aed 
by being gratified with such an estimate of himself, it 
^.iniwed, he felt, more perception than he had looked Im, and 
he answered, with a little complacency, “ 1 hope you thunk 
that is the right way of approaching a new subject. 

“ J am not unbiased rhyself,” said the lawyer, and I have 
had to do with it all my life. There are conditions connectecl 
with your inheritance. Lord Erradeen, that may seem out oi 
the way to a stranger. If you had succeeded in the w^ay ot 
nature, as your father’s son, they would not have been new 
to you, ancl you would have been prepared. In that way it 
is hard upon you. There was one of your ancestors that laid 
certain conditions, as I was saying, upon every heir. He was 
one that had, as you may say, a good right to do that, or 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


76 

whatever else he pleased, seeing he was the making of the 
family. In old days it was no more than a bit small high- 
land lairdship. It was he that gave it consequence ; but he 
has held a heavy hand upon his successors ever since.” 

“ Would it be he by any chance of whom Mr. Bannatyne 
was discoursing to me^” said Walter, “ under the title of the 
warlock lord ? ” 

“ Ah ! John Bannatyne took that upon him ? ” cried Mr. 
Milnathort, with vivacity. His eyes gleamed from imder 
his deep-set brows. “ The less a man knows the more ready 
he is to instruct the world ; but I never thought he would 
take that upon him. So you see, as I was saying, there are 
certam— formalities to go through. It is understood that 
once a year, wherever he may be, Lord Erradeen should pass 
say a week, say two or three days, in the old castle of Kin- 
loch Houran, which is the old seat of the family, and the 
orginal of tl^e Methven race.” 

Walter had been listening with some anxiety. He drew 
a long breath as Mr. Milnathort came to a pause. “ Is that 
all ?” he cried Avith a voice of relief. Then he laughed. “ I 
was winding myself up to something heroic, but if it is only 
a periodical retirement to an old castle— to think, I suppose, 
upon one’s sins and examine one’s conscience ” 

“ Something very like that,” said the old man, somewhat 
grimly. 

“ Well ! It might be a great inconvenience ; but there is 
nothing very appalling in the prospect, if that is all.” 

“ It is all. Lord Erradeen— if ye except what passes there, 
a thing that is your own concern, and that 1 have never 
pried into for my part. And just this beside, that you are 
expected there at once and without delay.” 

“ Expected— at once and without delay.” Walter grew 
red with anger at these peremptory words. “ This sounds a 
little arbitrary,” he said. “Expected? by whom? and to 
what nurpose ? I don’t understand ” 

“ Nor do I, my young lord. But it’s so in the documents, 
tmd so has it been with every lord of- Erradeen iix) to this 
period. It is the first thing to be done. Before you come 
into enjoyment of anything, or take your place in the country 
there is this visit — if you like to call it a visit ; this sojourn *, 
not a long one, at least, you may be thankful— to be 
made ” 

“To what purpose?” Walter repeated, almost mechani- 
cally. He could not, himself, understand the sudden tem- 
pest of resistance, of anger, of alarm that got up within him. 
“There is reason in everything,” he said, growing pale. 
“ Wiat is it for ? What am, I to do ? ” 

“Lord Erradeen, a minute since you ♦said, was that all? 
And now you change color; you ask why, and where, 
fore 


THE WIZARD^S SON. 


11 

Walter made a ^reat effort to regain command of him- 
self. “ It is inconsistent, I allow,” he said. “ Somehow, the 
order to go now is irritating and unpleasant. I suppose it’s 
simple enough, a piece of tyranny such as people seem to 
think they may indulge in after they’re dead. But it is 
abominably arbitrary and tyrannical. What good does the 
old beggar think ” 

“ Hold your peace,” cried Mr. Milnathort, with a little 
trepidation. We have no right to call names, and I should 

not like it to be thought ” Here he paused with a sort 

of uneasy smile, and added, “I am speaking nonsense,” 
with a vague glance about him. “ I think we might join my 
sister upstairs ; and, as she knows as much as I do, or, may- 
be, more, you can speak as freely as you please before her — 
oh, quite freely. But my dear young lord, call no names ! ” 
cried Mr. Milnathort. He got up hurriedly, leaving his wine 
which he had just filled, a demonstration of sincerity which 
made a great impression ui)on alter ; and threw open the 
door. “ Putting off the business details until to-morrow, I 
know nothing else that we can discuss before Alison,” he 
said. 

Walter was much startled when lie went back to the in- 
ner drawing-room and found it lighted. Miss Milnathort 
did not emiiloy any of those devices by which light is softened 
to suit the exigencies of beauty which has passed its prime. 
The light (alas for the prejudices of the sesthetic reader) was 
gas ; and, though it was slightly disguised by means of opal 
glass, it still poured down in a brilliant flood, and the little 
room was almost as light as day. She lay in her chaise 
longue placed under this illumination. Her face was preter- 
naturally young, almost childish, small and full of coloi\ her 
hair snow-white. She seemed to have been exempted from 
the weight of years, in compensation, perhaps, for other suf- 
ferings her skin was smooth and unwrinkled, her eyes full 
of dewy brightness like those of a girl. Her dress, so far as 
it was visible, was white, made of cashmere or some other 
woollen mateiMal, solid and warm, l)ut with lace at the neck, 
and pretty ribbons breaking the monotony of the tint. She 
looked like a girl dressed for some sim])le party, who had 
lain there waiting for the little festivity to begin, for no one 
could imagine how many years. Her hands were soft and 
round and young like her face. The wind had not been al- 
lowed to visit her cheek too roughly for a lifetime. What 
had happened before the event which she and her brother 
had both referred to as her accident ” belonged to a period 
which had evidently nothing to do with the present. Walter 
saw at a glance that every possible conyenience which could 
be invented for an invalid surrounded her. She had a set of 
book-shelves at one side with vacant spaces where she could 
place the book she was reading, Tables that wheeled tOv 


THE WIZARD^ S SON. 


78 

ward her at a touch, with needlework, with knitting, with 
drawing materials, were arranged within reach. One of 
these made into a desk and put itself across her couch by 
another adaptation. It was evident that the tenderest af- 
fection and care had made this prison of hers into a sort of 
museum of every ingenuity that had ever been called to the 
help of the suffering. She lay or rather sat, for that was 
her general position, with an air of pleasant expectation on 
her face, and received them with smiles and hands held out. 
“ Come away, came away,” she said in her soft Scotch. “ 1 
have been wearying for you.” Walter thought there was 
something of age in her voice, but that might have been only 
the Scotch, and the unusual form of her salutation. She 
pointed out a chair to him carefully placed for her con- 
venience in seeing and hearing. “ Come and tell me what 
you think about it all,” she said. 

“ I have not heard much,” said Walter, “ to think about : 
except that I am to go away directly, which does not please 
me at all. Miss Milnathort.” 

“ Oh, you will come back, you will come back,” she said. 

“ I hope so : but the reason why I should go doesn’t seem 
very plain. What would happen, I wonder, if I didn’t?” 
Walter said, lightly. He was surprised to see how much 
effect was produced upon his companions by this very simple 
utterance. Miss Milnathort put her hands together, as if to 
clasp them in triumph. Her brother stood looking down 
upon the others, with his back to the light, and an air of 
alarmed displeasure. 

“One result would be that certain of the lands would 
pass to the next heir,” he said; “besides, perhaps— other 
penalties ; that I would not incur. Lord Erradeen, if I were 
you.” 

“ What penalties ? But do you think at this time of day,” 
said Walter, “that ridiculous conditions of this kind that 
can mean nothing could really be upheld by the law— now 
that bequests of all kinds are being interfered with, and 
even charities ? ” 

“Robert, that is true. There was the Melville mortifica- 
tion that you had so much trouble about, and that was a 
charity. How much more, as young Lord Erradeen is say- 
ing, when it is just entirely out of reason.” 

“You should hold your peace on legal subjects, Alison. 
What can you know about them ? I disapprove of all inter- 
ference with the will of a testator. Lord Erradeen. I hold it 
to be against the law, and against that honor and honesty 
that we owe to the dead as well as the living. But there has 
always been a license allowed in respect to charities. So 
far as they are intended to be for the good of the poor, we 
have a right to see that the testator’s meaning is carried out, 
even if it be contrary to his stipulations. But in a private 


THE WIZARHS SOH, 


79 

case there is no sncli latitude. And you must always respect 
the testator’s meaning, which is very clear in this case, as 
even you will allow, Alison.” 

“ Ay, clear enough,” cried the young-old lady, shaking her 
white head. “ But I’m on your side. Lord Erradeen. I would 
.just let them try their worst, and see what would come of it, 
if, instead of a lame woman, I was a young man, lively and 
strong like you.” 

“The question is,” said Walter, “ for I have become pru- 
dent since I have had property— whether for such an insig- 
nificant affair it is worth Avhile losing a substantial advan- 
tage as Mr. Milnathort says ? And then, perhaps, a new man 
like myself, coming into an antiquated routine mere would be 
a sort of discourtesy, a want of politeness—” lie laughed. 
“ One ought, I suppose, to be on one’s best behavior in such 
circumstances,” he said. 

Miss Milnathort’s countenance fell a little. She did not 
make any reply ; but she had been listening with an air so 
eager and full of vivacity, anxious to speak, that the young 
man at once perceived the disappointment in her expressive 
little face. He said quickly— 

“That does not please you? What would ypu have me 
do ? ” with an involuntary sense that she had* a right to an 
opinion. 

Mr. Milnathort at this moment sat heavily down on the 
other side, giving great emphasis to his interruption by the 
sound of his chair drawn forward, a sound which she pro- 
tested against Avith a sudden contraction of her forehead, 
putting up a delicate hand. 

“ I beg your pardon, my dear, for making a noise. You 
must not consult Alison, Lord Erradeen ; she is prejudiced, 
on one side— and I— perhaps I am, if not prejudiced, yet 
biased, on the other. You must act on your own instinct, 
which as far as I can judge, is a just one. It would be a 
great incivility, as you say, for a far away collateral, that is 
really no more than a stranger, to set himself against the tra- 
ditions of a house.” 

Walter did not much like to hear himself described as a 
far away collateral. It sounded like a term of reproach, and 
as he did not choose to say anything more on this matter, he 
made the best change of subject he could. 

“ I wonder,” he said, “ what would happen with any of the 
fantastic old feudal tenures if a new heir, a new man like 
myself, should simply refuse to fulfil them.” 

“ Mostly they take a pride and a pleasure in fulfiilling 
them.” said the old lawyer. 

“ But suppose,” cried Walter, “ for the sake of argument, 
that a new Duke of ]\Iarlborough should say, “ AYhat rub- 
bish ! Why should I send that obsolete old flag to Windsor ! ” 
That is a modern instance ; or suppose ” , 


8o 


THE WrZAEJyS SON. 


“Just tliat,” cried .Aliss Miliiatliort, striking- in with a 
ilicker of her nretty hands. “Suppose young (ilenearn 
should refuse when lie comes of age to licar a word about 
that secret cha’mcv 

“What would liappen?” said Walter, with the laugh of 
profane and irreverent youth. 

Mr. Milnathort rose to his full height ; he pushed back his 
chair with an indignant movement. 

“ Vou may as well ask me,” he said, “ what would happen 
if the pillars of the earth should give way. Tt is a thing that 
eannot be, at least till the end of all things is at hand. 1 will 
ring for prayei'S, Alison. My Lord Erradeen is young; he 
knows little ’; but this kind of profane talk is not to be justi- 
fied from you and me.” 

Then the bell was rung; the servants came trooping up- 
stairs, and Symington gave Walter a sidelong look as he 
took his seat behind their backs. It seemed to assert a de- 
mure claim of proprietorship, along with a total want of 
faith in the “ other man.” \ oung Lord Erradeen found that 
it was all he could do to restrain an irreverent laugh. The 
position was so comic, that his original sense of angry re- 
sivStance disappeared Ijefore it. lie was going off against Ids 
will to pa^ through a mysterious ordeal in an old ruined 
house, under charge of a sei-vant whom he did not want, ami 
in obedience to a stipulation which he disowned. He was 
not half so free an agent as he had been when he was poor 
Walter Methven, Icnocking about the streets of Sloebury 
and doing much what be liked, though he thought himself 
in bondage. Bondage! he did notkmnv in the old days 
what the word would mean. 


CHAPTEBIX. 

The day on which Walter set out for Kinloch llouran 
was fuie and bright, the sky very clear, the sun shining, the 
hills standing out against the blue, and every line of the tall 
trees clearly marked upon the transparent atmosphere. It 
was not till two days after the conversation above recorded 
—for there had been much to explain, and Walter was so 
little acquainted with business that instructions of various 
kinds were necessary. IMiss ^lilnathort was visible much 
earlier than usual on the morning of his departure, ^nd he 
was admitted to see her. She wa.s paler than before, and her 
little soft face Avas full of agitation ; the corners of her little 
mouth turned doAvn, and lier upper lip, which was a trifle too 
long, quivering. This added ratlier than took aAvay from 
her appearance of youth. She was like a child Avho had ex- 
liausted itself Avith crying, and still trembled Avith an oc- 


THE WfZAED'S SdN. 


casional sol). She stretcliecl up her arms to him as if she 
wouhl luive put them round his neck, and bade God bless' 
him with a tremulous voice. 

“ You must have plenty of courag-e.” she said ; “and you 
must never, never give up youi‘ own way.” 

^Yalter was touched to the heart hy'this look of trouble 
on the innocent, young-old face. 

“ I thought it Avas ahvays right to give uj) one’s oavii way,” 
he said, in the light tone Avliich he had come to employ with 
her. 

She made an effort to smile in response. 

“ Oh yes, oh yes, it’s the fashion to say so. Yo\i are a self- 
denying race to l)elieve yourselves ; but this time you must 
not yield.” 

“ To Avhom am I supposed to bo about to yield V” he asked. 
“ You may be sure 1 sha’n’t unless I can’t heli) myself.” 

The tears overfloAved her bright old eyes; her hands 
shook as they held his. 

“ God bless you ! God bless you! ’’she said, “f will do 
nothing but pray for you, and you will tell me Avhen you 
come back.” 

He left her lying liack upon her cushions sobbing under 
lier breath. All this half-perplexed, half-amused the young 
man. She Avas a very strange little creature, he felt, neither 
old nor young ; there was no telling the reason of her emo- 
tion. She Avas so much indulged in all her Avhims, like ii 
spoiled child, that perhaijs these tears Avere only her regrets 
for a lost playmate. At the same time AYal ter kneAv that 
this Avas not so, and Avas angry Avith himself for the thought. 
But hoAv find his Avay out of the perj)lexity ? He sliookit off, 
Avhich is ahvays the easiest Avay ; and soon the landscape be- 
gan to attract his attention, and he forgot by degrees tliat 
there was anything very unusual in the circumstances of his 
journey. It Avas not till the first long stage' of tliis journey 
Avas over that he Avas suddenly roused to a recollection of 
eA^erything invoHed, by the appearance of Symington at the 
carriage AvindoAV, respectfully requesting to knoAv Avhether 
he had Avanted anything. Walter had not remembered, oi* 
if lie had remembered had thought no more of it, that this 
quietly officious retainer had taken all trouble from him at 
the beginning of his journey, as he had done during his stay 
in 3Ir. Milnathort’s house. 

“ What ! are you here V ” he said, Avith surprise, and a 
mixture of amusement and offence. 

“ I beg your pardon, my lord,” said Symington, with 
profound and serious respect, yet alAAa\ys a tAvinkle in his 
eye, “but as the other man did not turn u])-— and your lord- 
ship could scarcely traA^el Avithout some attendance ” 

He had to rush behind to get his place in the train in the 
midst of his sentence, and Walter Avas left to think it OA^er 


82 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


<aloiie. In the balance l)etween anger and amusement the 
latter fortunately won the day. The comic side of the matter 
oame uppermost. It seemed to him very droll that he should 
be taken possession of, against his will, by the valet who pro- 
fessed an attachment to the race, not to the individual mem- 
bers of it, whose head was garlanded with crape in the quaint 
Scotch way for Walter’s predecessor, and who had “identified 
himself with the Erradeens.” He reminded himself that he 
was in the country of Caleb Balderstone and Ritchie Moni- 
plies, and he resigned himself to necessity. Symington’s 
comic yet so respectful consciousness that “ the other man ” 
was a mere imagination, was joke enough to secure his 
pardon, and Walter felt that though the need of attendance 
AViis quite new in his life, that it might be well on his arrival 
in a strange country and a lonely ruined house, to have some 
one with him who was not ignorant either of the locality or 
the household. 

The country increased in interest as he went on, and by 
and by he forgot himself in gazing at the mountains which 
appeared in glimpses upon the horizon, then seemed to draw 
nearer, closing in upon the road, which leads along by the 
head of one loch after another, each encompassed by its circle 
of hills. Walter kneAv very little about Scotland. He thought 
it a barren and wild country, all bleak and gloomy, and the 
lavish vegetation of the west filled him with surprise and 
admiration. The sun was near its setting when the railway 
journey came to an end, and he found himself at a village 
station, from which a coach ran to Kinloch Houran. It ap- 
])eared that there was no other vehicle to be had, and though 
1 b was cold there was nothing else for it but to clamber up on 
the top of the rude coach, which was a sort of char-a-banc 
without any interior. Walter felt that it would become him 
ill, notwithstanding his new rank, to grumble at th^ convey- 
ance, upon which mere mounted nimbly a girl whom he had 
remarked when leaving Edinburgh, and whom he had 
watched for at all the pauses of the journey. He thought her 
the very impersonation of all he had ever heard of Scotch 
beauty, and so would most observers to whom Scotland is a 
new country. The native Scot is aware that there are as 
many brown locks as golden, and as many dark maidens as 
fair ones in his own country ; but notwithstanding, to the 
stranger it is the fair wdio is the type. This young lady was 
wfarimy clothed in dark tweed, of the ruddy heathery hue 
which is now so general, not long enough to conceal her 
well-shod feet, clbsely fitting, and adapted for constant walk- 
ing and movement. She seemed to be met by friends all 
along the route. From the carriage window Walter saw her 
look out with little cries of pleasure. “ Oh, is that you. Jack ? ” 
“Oh, ISTelly, where are you going?” “Oh, come in here, 
there is room in this carriage,” and such like. She was always 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


83 

leaning out to say a word to somebody, either of farewell or 
welcome. “You will remember me to your mother,” old 
gentlemen would call to her, as the train’ went on. Walter 
was greatly in want of amusement, and he was at the age 
when a girl is always interesting. She became to him the 
heroine of the journey. He felt that he was collecting a great 
deal of information about her as they travelled on, and had 
begun to wonder whether he should ever find out who she 
was, or see any more of her, when he perceived her, to his 
delight, getting out as he himself did, at Baldally. She was 
met by a respectable woman servant, who took possession of 
her baggage, while the young lady herself ran across the 
road to the coach, and with a hearty greeting to John the 
coachman darted up to the seat immediately behind him, 
where her maid presently joined her. Walter, and a person- 
age of the commercial traveller class, shared the coachman’s 
seat in front, and Symington and some humbler passengers 
sat behind. The coach was adapted for summer traffic, so 
that there were several lines of empty seats between the two 
sets of travellers. It gave Walter a great deal of pleasure to 
hear the soft voice of his fellow traveller pouring forth, low 
yet quite audible, an account of her journey to her maid, who 
was evidently on the most confidential terms with her young 
mistress. 

“ Has mamma missed me— much V ” she asked, after the 
little Odyssey was over. 

“ Oh, Miss Oona, to ask that,” cried the woman ; “ how 
should we not miss you ? ” and then there ensued a number 
of details on the home side. The ^rl had been on a visit to 
Edinburgh, had gone to balls, and “ seen everything.” On 
the other hand many small matters faithfully reported, had 
filled up the time of separation. Walter listened to all this 
innocent interchange with gi-eat amusement and interest as 
the coach made its way slowly up the ascents of the hilly 
road. It was not in itself an agreeable mode of progression ; 
the wind was icy cold, and swept through and through the 
unfortunates who faced it in front, sharpening into almost 
absolute needle points of ice when the pace quickened, and 
the noisy, jolting vehicle lumbered down the further side of 
a hill, threatening every moment to pitch the passengers into 
the heathery bog on one side or the other. He tried to dim- 
inish his own discomfort by the thought that he took off the 
icy edge of the gale and sheltered the little slim creature in 
her close ulster behind, about whose shoulders the maid had 
^cound the snowy mass of a great white knitted shawl. The 
low sun was iir their faces as they toiled and rattled along, 
and the clear wintry blue of the sky was already strewn witli 
radiant rosy masses of cloud. When they reached the high- 
est point of the road the dazzling gleam of the great loch 
lying at their feet and made into a mirror of steel by the last 


THE WIZARHS SOH 


84 

blaze of the sun before it disappeared, dazzled the young 
man, who could see nothing except tne cold intolerable 
brightness ; but in a moment more the scene disclosed itself. 
Hills all purple in the sunsets, clothed with that ineffable 
velvet down which softens every outline, opened out on 
either side, showing long lines of indistinct green valleys 
and narrower ravines than ran between, all converging 
towards the broad and noble inland' sea fringed with dark 
Avoods and broken with feathery islands, which was the cen- 
tre of the landscape. The wonderful color of the sky reflected 
in the loch, where everything found a reflection, and eveiy 
knoll and island floated double, changed the character of the 
scene and neutralized the dazzling coldness of the great 
water-mirror; Walter’s involuntary exclamation at this 
sight stopped for a moment all the conversation^ going on 
“ By Jove,” he said, “ how glorious ! ” They all stopped talk- 
ing, the coachman, the traveller, the woinan behmd, and 
looked at him. Big John the driver, who knew everybody, 
eyed him with a slightly supercilious air, as one who felt that 
the new comer could not be otherwise than contemptible, 
more or less, even though his sentiments were irreproach- 
able. “ Ay, sir— so that’s your opinion V most folk have been 
beforehand with ye ’said John. 

The commercial traveller added, condescendingly, “ It is 
cold weather for touring, sir ; but it’s a grand country, as 
ye say.” And then they resumed their conversation. 

The young lady behind Avas far more sympathetic. She 
made a distinct pause, and Avhen she spoke again it was with 
a flattering adoption of Walter’s tone to i)ointout to her 
companion hoAv beautiful the scene Avas. 

“ The isle is floating too, Mysie— look ! If AA^e could get 
there soon enough Ave might land upon one of those rosy 
clouds.” 

Walter gave a grateful glance behind him, and felt that 
he Avas understood. 

“ That is just your poetry, jMiss Oona,” said the maid ; 

“ but, bless me, 1 have never told ye : there has been the light 
lighted in the castle these two nights past. We have just 
thought upon you all the time, anct Iioav much taken up you 
Avould be about it, your mamma and me.” 

“ The light on the castle ! ” cried the young lady; and at 
this the coachman, turning slightly round, entered into the 
conversation.” . 

That has it,” he said ; “ 1 can back her up in that ; just 
as clear and as steady as a star. There are many they say 
that never can see it ; but they Avould be clever that had not 
seen it these tAVO ])ast nights.” 

'‘Who says they cannot, see it?” said the girl, ip digs 
nan-ily, 


THE WIZAKHS SON. 85 

John gave a iittle flic to his leader, which made the whole 
machine vibrate and roll. 

“ Persons of the newfangled kind that believe in nothing,” 
he said. “ They will tell ye it cannot be— so how can ye see 
it? though it is glinting in their faces all the time.” 

“You are meaning me, John,” said the traveller on the 
box-seat; “and there’s truth in what you say. I’ve seen 
what you call the light, and no doubt it has the appearance 
of a light ; but if you tell me it’s something supernatural, 
there can be no doubt I will answer ye that there’s nothing 
supernatural. If you were to tell me you had seen a ghost, 
I would just reply in the same way. No, my man, I’m Iiot 
impeaching your veracity. You saw something. I’ll allow; 
but no’ a ghost, for there are no ghosts to see.” 

“That’s just an awfu’ easy way of settlin’ the question,” 
said the maid from behind— and then she went on in a lower 
tone ; “ This will be the third night since it began, and we’ve 
a’ seen it on the Isle. Hamish, he says the new lord may be 
of a dour kind to need so many warnings. And he’s feared 
ill will come of it ; but I say the new lord, no bein’ here 
aw^ nor of this country at all, how is he to ken ? ” 

The girl’s voice was now quite Ioav, almost a whisper ; 
but Walter being immediately in front of her could still 
hear. “ Has anything been heard,” she said, “ of the new 
lord?” 

“ Very little. Miss Ooria, only that he’s a young lad from 
the south with no experience, and didna even know that he 
was the heir ; so how could he ken, as i say to Hamish ? 
But Hamish he insists that it’s in the blood, and that he 
would ken by instinck ; and that it shows an ill will, and ill 
will come of it.” 

“ If I were he,” cried the girl, “ I would do the same. I 
would not be called like that from the end of the workl 
wherever I was.” 

“ Oh, whisht, Miss Oona. It is such an auld, aiild story ; 
how can the like of you say what should be done ?” 

“I would like myself,” said the traveller, “ to come to the 
bottom of this business. What is it for, and who has the 
doing of it? The moment you speak of a light ye pre-sup- 
pose a person that lights it and mainy adjuncks ami acces- 
sories. Now, there’s' nobody, or next to nobody, living lu 
that auld ruin. It’s some rendezvous, I can easily umh'r- 
stand that. The days of conspiracies are gone by, or 1 
would say it was something against the state; and whatever 
it is, it must have a purpose, and mortal hands must do it, 
seeing there are no other. I have heard since ever I began 
to travel this country of the Kinloch Houran light, 1)ut I 
never heard a reason assigned.” 

“It’s the living lord,” cried the maid, “as everybody 
hiiows ! that is called to meet with — ” 


86 


THE WIZAKHS SON. 

Here the young lady interfered audibly— 

“Mysie. not a word?” The woman’s voice continued, 
stifled as if a hand had been laid on her mouth. 

“With them that are — with ane that is— I’m saying 
nothing, Miss Oona, but what all the loch is well 
aware — 

“ It’s just a feiiie of this part of the world,” said John the 
driver ; “ nae need of entering into it with them that believe 
naething. I’m no what ye call credulous mysel’ ; but when 
. it comes to the evidenee of a man’s ain senses ” 

“ And what have your senses said to ye, my fhie fellow ? 
that there’s a queer kind of glimmer up on the auld 
tower ? So are there corpse-candles, if I’m not mistsrken, 
seen by the initiated upon your burial isle— what do you 
call it?” 

“And wha has a word to say gainst that?” cried the 
driver angrily ; whilst i\Iysie behind murmured— “ It’s well 
seen ye have naething to do with any grave there.” 

Now Walter was as entirely free from superstition as any 
young man need be ; but when he heard the laugh with 
’which the sceptic greeted these protests, he had the greatest 
niind in the world to seize him by the collar and pitch him 
into the bog below. Why? but the impulse was quite un- 
reasonable and defied explanation. He had as little faith in 
corpse-candles as any bagman ever had, and the embar- 
rassed and uneasy consciousness he had that the end of his 
journey was inexplicable, and its purpose ridiculous, led 
him much more to the conclusion that lie was being placed 
in a ludicrous position, than that there was anything 
solemnly or aAvfully mysterious in it. Nevertheless, so far 
from ranging himself’ upon the side of the enlightened 
modern who took the common-sense vieAv of these Highland 
traditions, his scorn and impatience of him was beyond 
Avords. For his own part he had not been sufficiently’ self- 
possessed to join in the discussion ; but at this moment he 
ventured a question— 

“Is this old castle you speak of—” here he paused, not 
knowing hoAv to shape his inquiry; then added, “iiniii- 
habited ? ” for Avant of anything better to say. 

“ Not altogetlier,” said John ; “ there is auld Macalister 
and his wife that live ’half in the Avater, half out of the 
Avater. And it’s the story in the parish that there are good 
rooms; aye re^^dy for my lord. But I can tell ye naething 
about that, for I m always on the mad, and I see nathing 
but a wheen tourists in the summer, that are seeking infor- 
mation, and have none to give piiir creatures. There’s a 
neAv lord just come to ^the title ; ye Avill may be have met 
with him if ye’re from the south, for he’s just an Englisl) 
lad.” 

“England, my man John, is a wide road,” said the travel- 


THE \V/ZAR/fS SON. 87 

ler; “ there are too many for us all to know each other as ye 
do m a parish ; this gentleman will tell ye that.” 

Johirs satirical explanation that he had not suspected 
Mv. Smith, Avhose northern accent was undoubted of being 
an Englishman, saved Walter from any necessity of making 
a reply ; and by this time the coach was rattling down upon a 
little homely inn, red-roofed and white-walled, which stood 
upon a knoll, overlooking the loch, and was reflected in all 
its brightness of color in that mirror. The ground shelved 
rapidly down to the waterside, and there were several boats 
lying ready to put into the loch— one a ponderous ferry boat 
another a smaller, but still substantial and heavy cobble, in 
which a man with a red shirt and shaggy locks was standing 
up relieved against the light. Walter jumped down hur- 
riedly with the hope of being in time to give his hand to the 
young lady, Avho iierhaps had divined his purpose, for she 
managed to alight on the other side and so halk him. The 
landlady of the little inn had come out to the door, and there 
was a great sound of salutations and exclamations of wel- 
come. “But I mustna keep you. Miss Oona, and your 
mamma countin’ the moments; and there’s two or three 
parcels,” the woman said. The air began to grow a little 
brown, as the Italians say, that faint veil of gathering shade 
which is still not darkness, was putting out by degrees the 
radiance of the sky, and as Walt^l stood listening all the 
mingled sounds of the arrival rose together in a similar mist 
of sound, through which he sought for the soft little accents 
of the young lady’s voice amid the noises of the unharness- 
ing, the horses’ hoofs and hostler’s pails, and louder tones. 
Presently he saw her emerge from the group with her maid, 
laden with baskets and small parcels, and embarking under 
the conduct of the man with the red shirt, whom she greeted 
affectionately as Hamish, assume her placedn the stern, and 
the ropes of the rudder, with evident use and wont. To 
watch her steer out into the darkening loch, into the dim- 
ness and cold, gave the ypimg man a vague sensation of 
ixiin. It seemed to him as if the last possible link with the 
human and sympathetic was detaching itself from him. He 
did not know her indeed, but it does not take a long time or 
much personal knowledge, to weave this mystic thread be- 
tween one young creature and another. Most likely, he 
thought, she had not so much as noticed him : but she had 
come into the half-real dream of his existence, and touched 
his hand, as it were, in the vague atmosphere which separ- 
ates one being from another. Now he was left with nothing 
around him but the darkening landscape and the noisy little 
crowd about ttie coach; no one who could give him anv 
fellowship or encouragement in the further contact which 
lay before him with the mysterious and unknown. 

■ After a few moments tlie landlady came towards him^ 


THE WIZARDS SOH. 


88 

sinoothiiig clown her white apron, which made a great point 
in the landscape, so broad was it and so white. She smiled 

upon him Avith ingratiating looks. 

“ Will you be gomg north, sir ? she said ; or will you 
be biding tor the night V Before we dish up the dinner and 
put the idieets on the beds Ave like to know.” 

Who is that young lady that has 311st gone aAvay said 
Walter, not paying much attention; “ancl Avliere is she 
going? It is late and cold for the Avater. Bo you ever get 

frozen here?” „ . ,, , ui j. 

“ That is jMiss Dona of the Isle,” saicl the landlady ; but, 
as I AA^as saying, sir, about the beds — 

“Are the islands inhabited then? said Walter; and 
Avhere is Kinlocli llouran? Does one go there by Avater 
too?”' . . , . 

“No, Mistress Maegregor,” said Symington s Aguce on the 
other side ; “ my lord Avill not bide here to-night. 1 ve been 
doAAm to the beacli, and there is a boat there, but not your 
lordship’s oAvn, any more than there Avas a carriage Avaiting 
at j>aldally. We must just put our pride in our pockets, my 
lord, and put up Avith Avhat Ave can get. When your lord- 
shiirs ready Ave’re all ready,” 

By this time Big John and all the others Avere standing 
in a group staring at Lord Erradeen Avith all their eyes. 
John explained himself in a loud A^oice, but Avith an evident 
secret sense of shame. 

“ lloo was I to ken ? A lord has nae business to scour the 
country like that, like ony gangrel body — sitting on the seat 
just like the rest of us— Mr. Smith and him and me. Lord ! 
hoo Avas I to ken ? If you hear nae good of yourself, it is just 
your ain blame. I Avas thinking of no .lord dr any such cattle. 
I Avas just thinking upon my beasts. As for a lord that gangs 
about like yon, deceiving honest folk, I Avouldna give that 
for him,” John said, snapping his huger and thumb, llis 
voice sank at the end, and tlie conclusion of the speech Avas 
l)ut half audible ; ]Mrs. IMacgregor interposing her round, 
soft intonation betAveen the speaker and the stranger. 

“ Kh, my lord, I just beg your pardon ! I had no notion— 
and I hope your lordship found them a’ civil. Big John is 

certainly a little quick AV'ith his tongue ” 

“I hope you’re not supposing. Mistress ^faegregor, that 
his lordship would fash himself about Big John,” said 
Symington, avIio had noAV taken the direction of affairs. 
AYalter, to tell' the truth, did not feel much inclination to 
enter into the discussion. The gathering chill of the night 
had got into his inner man. lie AA^ent doAvn toAwirds the 
beach slowly pondering, taking every st^> Avith a certain 
hesitation. It seemed to him that he stood on the boundary 
between the even ground of reality and some Avild Avorld of 
liction which he did not comprehend, but had a mingled ter- 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


89 

ror and hatred of. Behind him everything was homely and 
poor enough ; the light streamed out of the open doors and 
uncovered windows, the red roof had a subdued glow of 
cheerfulness in the brown air, the sounds about were cheer- 
ful, full of human bustle and movement, and mutual good 
ottices. The men led the horses away with a certain kind- 
ness; the landlady, with her white apron, stopped to say a 
friendly word to Big John, and interchanged civilities with 
the other humble passengers who were bringing her no 
custom, but merely passing Irer door to the ferry boat that 
waited to take them acrsss the loch. Everywhere there was 
a friendly interchange, a gleam of human warmth and 
mutual consolation. But before him lay the dark water, 
with a dark shadow of mingled towers and trees lying upon 
it at some distance, lie understood vaguely that this was 
Kinloch llouran, and the sight of it was not inviting. He 
did not know what it might be that should meet him there, 
but Avhatever it was it repelled and revolted him. He 
seemed to be about to overpass some invisible boundary of 
truth and to venture into the false, into regions in which 
folly and trickery reigned. There was in W alter’s mind all 
the sentiment of'his century towards the supernatural. He 
had an angry disbelief in his mind, not the trancpiil contempt 
of the indifferent. Ilis annoyed and irritated scorn perhaps 
was nearer faith than he supposed ; but he was impatient of 
being called upon to give any of his attention to those fables 
of the past which imposture only could keep up in the 
l)resent. He felt that he was going to be made the victim of 
some trick or other. The country people evidently believed, 
indeed, as was natural enough to' their simplicity; but Wal- 
ter felt too certain that he would see the mechanism behind 
the most artful veil to believe it possible that he himself 
could be taken in, even for a moment. And he had no desire 
to find out the contemptible imposture. He felt the whole 
business contemptilde ; the secluded spot, the falling night, 
the uninhabited place, were all part of the jugglery. Should 
he voluntarily make himself a party to it, and walk into the 
snare with his eyes open? He felt sure, indeed, that he 
would remain with his eyes open all the time, and was not 
in the least likely to submit to any black art that might be 
exercised ui)on him. But he paused, and asked himself was 
it consistent with the dignity of a reasonable creature, a full 
grown man, to allow himself to be dri\wn into any degrading 
(ontact with this jugglery at all. 

J'he boat lay oh the beach with his baggage already in it, 
and Symington standing respectful, awaiting his master’s 
pleasure. Symington, no doubt, was the god out of the 
machinery who had the jin mot of eyerything and all the 
strings in Ills hand. What if he broke the spell perempto- 
rily and retired to the ruddy fireside of the inn and defied 


90 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


family tradition ? He asked himself again what would come 
of it? and replied to himself scornfully that nothing could 
come of it. What law could force him to observe an anti- 
quated superstition ? It was folly to threaten him with im- 
possible penalties. And even if a thing so absurd could 
happen as that he should be punished in purse or property 
for acting like a man of sense instead of a fool, what then ? 
The mere possibility of the risk made Walter more disposed 
to incur it. It was monstrous and insufferable that he 
should be made to carry out a tyrannical, antiquated stipula- 
tion by any penalty of the law. It would be better to fight 
it out once for all. All the sense of the kingdom would ];e 
with him, and he did not believe that any judge could pri;- 
nounce against him^ Here Symington called, with a slight 
tone of anxiety, “ We are all ready, my lord, and waiting.” 
This almost decided Walter. He turned from the beach, 
and made a few hasty steps up the slo]:)e. 

But then he paused again, and turning round faced once 
more the darkening water, the boat lying like a shadow upon 
the beach, the vague figures of the men about it. The ferry- 
boat had pushed off and was lumbering over the v ater with 
great oars going like bats’ wings, and a noisy human load. 
The other little vessel with that girl had almost disappeared. 
He thought he could see in the darkness a white speck like 
a bird, which was the white shawl that wrapped her throat 
and shoulders. Her home lay somewhere m the, centre of 
these dark waters, a curious nest for such a creature. And 
his ? He turned again towards the dark, half-seen towers 
and gables. Some of them were so irregular in outline that 
they could be nothing but ruins. He began to think of the 
past, mute, out of date, harmless to affect the life that had 
replaced it, which had taken refuge there. And he remem- 
bered his own argument about the courtesy that the living 
owed to the dead. Well! if it was so, if it was as a polite^ 
ness, a courtesy to the past, it might be unworthy a gentle- 
man to refuse it. And perhaps when all was said it was 
just a little cowardly to turn one’s back upon a possible 
danger, upon what at least the vulgar thought a danger. 
This decided him. He turned onbe more, and with a few 
rapid steps reached the boat. Next moment they were 
afloat upon the dark loch. There had been no wind to speak 
of on shore, but the boat was soon struggling against a strong 
runnmg current, and a breeze which was like ice. The boat- 
men showed dark against the gleaming loch, the rude little 
vessel rolled, the wind blew. In front of them rose the dark 
towers and woods all black without a sign of human habita- 
tion. Walter felt his heart rise at last with the sense of 
adventure. It Avas the strangest way of entering upon a 
fine inheritance. 


The WIZARD'S SON, 


9t 


CHAPTER X. 

Kinlocii IIoukan Castle stands out of the very waters 
of Loch Hoiiran, with its ruined gables and towers clothed 
with ivy. From the water it looked like nothing but a roof- 
less and deserted ruin. One toweu in the centre stood up 
above the jagged lines of the walls, with something that 
looked like a ruined balcony or terrace commanding the 
landscape. The outline was indistinct, for the trees that 
had got footing in the ruined chambers below grew high and 
wild, veiling the means by which it was sustained at that 
altitude : but the little platform itself was very visible, sur- 
rounding the solid block of the tower, which showed no 
window or opening, but looked as if it might yet outlive 
centuries. As the boat approached, Walter saw the rowers 
wdiisper, and give significant looks at Symington, wdio sat 
respectfully on one of the cross seats, not to put himself in 
the way of his master, who occupied the other alone. Hoarse 
whispers breathed about the other end of the boat, and 
Symington w^as progged in the shoulders with an occasional 
oar. “ Will ye no’ be letting him see’t?” the rowers said. 
Walter’s faculties were eagerly acute in the strangeness of 
everything around him ; the sense that he was going to an im- 
possible house— to a ruin— on an impossible errand seemed 
to keep him on the alert in every particular of his being. He 
could see through the dusk, he could hear through the wiiis- 
tle of the wind and the lashing of the water upon the boat’s 
side, wdiich was like the roar of a mimic storm ; and he w'as 
not even insensible to tlie comic element in Symington’s 
face, who waved away the oar with which he was poked,- 
and replied wdth words and frowns and looks full of such 
superiority of information, that a burst of sudden nervous 
laughter at the sight relieved Walter’s excitement. He felt 
that a thrill of disapproval at this went through the boat, 
and the men in the bow shook their bonnets as tliey rowed. 

“ It’s nothing to laugh at, my lord,” said old Symington, 
“ though I’m not one — and I make no question but your lord- 
ship is not one— to lose my presence o’ mind. Yon’s the 
Xdienomenon that they wanted me to call your lordship’s 
attention to,” he qdded, jerking his arm, but without turn- 
ing his head, iirthe direction of the tower. 

“The light?” Walter said. He had been about to ask 
what the meaning of it might be. It had not been visible 
at all when they started, but for the last moment or two had 
been growing steadily. The daylight was waning every 
minute, and no doubt (he thought) it was this that made the 
light more evident. It shone from the balcony or high roof- 


THE WIZARDS SORT, 


92 

terrace which surrounded the old tower. It was difficult to 
distinguish what it was, or identity any laini) or beacon as 
the origin of it. It seemed to come from the terrace gen- 
erally, a soft, extended light, with nothing fiery in it, no ap- 
pearance of any blaze or burning, but a motionless, clear 
shining, which threw a strange glimmer upwards upon the 
solid mass of the tower, and downwards upon the foliage^ 
wdiich was black and glistening, and upon the surface of the 
water. “Yon’s the phenomenon,” said Symington, pointing 
with a jerk of his elbow. The light brought out the whole 
mass of rugged masonry and trees from the rest of the land- 
scape, and softly defined it against the darker background. 

“ How is it done ? ” said the young man, simply. He per- 
ceived the moment after that his tone was like that of the 
l)agman on the coach, and shiyered at the thought. So soft 
and steady was the light that it had not seemed to him ex- 
traordinary at all. 

“What do you mean by a phenomenon?” he asked, 
hastily. He remembered suddenly that the young lady on 
the coach had spoken of this light, and taken it, so to speak, 
under her protection. 

If your lordship has any desire to inquire into my 
opinion,” said old Symington, “though I doubt that’s little 
likely, 1 would say it was just intended to work on the im- 
agination. Noav mid then, indeed, it’s useful in the way of 
a sign— like a person weaving to you to come and speak ; but 
to work on the imagination, that’s what I would say.” 

Walter looked up at the light which threw a faint glim- 
mer across the dark water, showing the blackness of the 
roughened ripple, over which they were making their way, 
and Ininging into curious ])rominence the dark mass of the 
building rising out of it. It was not like the moon, it was 
more distinct than starlight, it w^as paler than a torch : nor 
was there any apparent central point from which it came. 
There was no electric light in those days, nor was Loch 
Houran a probable spot for its introduction: but the clear 
colorness light was of tliat dc^scription. It filled the visitor 
with a vague curiosity, but nothing more. 

“To work on— wiiose imagination? and with wiiat ob- 
ject ? he said. 

But as he asked the question the boat shot forward into 
the narrow^ part of the loch, and rounded the cornei’ of the 
ruin. Anything more hopeless as a place to wiiich living 
passengers, with the usual incumbrances of luggagCj w^ere 
going, could not well be conceived ; but after a few minutes 
rowing, the boat ran in to some rude steps on the other side 
of the castle, where there were traces of a path leading up 
across the rough grass to a partially visible door. All was 
so dark by this time that it was with difficulty that Walter 
found the landing ; when he had got ashore, and his port- 


THE WIZARD'S SOH. 


93 

manteju had been put out on the bank, the men in the boat 
pushed ott with an energy and readiness which proved their 
^tisfactipn in getting clear of the castle and its traditions, 
io find himselt left there, with an apT)arently ruined hotise 
behind him, his iiroperty at his feet, Iiis old' servant by his 
side, night closing in around, and the dark glistening water 
lapping up on the stones at his feet, ^\'as about as forlorn a 
situation as could be imagined. 

“Are we to pass the night here?’' he said, in a voice 
which could not help being somewhat querulous. 

riie sound of a door opening behind inteiTtipted his words, 
and turning round he saAV an old man standing in the door- 
with 9- small lamp in his liand. He held it up high 
over his head to see who the new-iomers were ; and Walter, 
looking round, saw a bowed and aged figure— a pale old 
face, which might liave been made out of ivory, so bloodless 
was it, the forehead i)olished and shining, some gray locks 
escaping at the side of a black skull-cap, and eyes looking 
out keenly into the darkness. ‘ 

“It is just Ins lordship, ]\Iacalister,” said old Symington. 
Ihe young man, who Avas so strange to it all, stood witli 
a sort of helplessness between the tAvo old men aa’Iio were fa- 
miliar Avith each other and the place and all its customs. 

‘ Come away, then, come UAA^ay,” cried the guardian of the 
house, Avith a slirill Vc)icc that penetrated the stillness 
sharply. ‘ What are ye biding there for in the dark ? ” 

“ And Avho’s to carry up my lord’s portmanteau ? ” said 
Symington. 

“ Ills portmanteau ! ” cried the other, Avith a sort of el- 
dritch laugh. “ Has he come to bide ? ” 

This colloquy held over him exasperated Walter, and he 
seized the portmanteau hastily, forgetting his dignity. 

“ Lend me a hand, Symington, and let us haA^e no more 
talk,” he said. 

Tliere is a moment Avhen the most forlorn sensations and 
the most dismal circumstances become either ludicrous or 
irritating. Tlie young man shook off his senses of oppression 
and repugnance as he hastened up the slope to the door, Avhile 
the lantern, flashing fitfully about, slioAved now the broken 
path, noAV the rough red masonry of the ruin, AAdiich Avas 
scarcely less unlike a ruin on this side than on the other. The 
door gave admittance into a narrow passage only, out of Avhich 
a spiral staircase ascended close to the entrance, the passage 
itself apparently leading aAvay into the darkness to a con- 
siderable distance. At the end of it stood a AA^oman with a 
lighted candle peering out at the stranger as the man had 
done. He seemed to realize the stories Avhich every one has 
read of a belated traveller unAvillingly received into some 
desolate inn, which turns out to be the headquarters of a 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


94 

robber-band, and where the intruder must be murdered ere 
llie moriiing. . , . . , , 

“This is your way, my lord,” said the shrill old man, lead- 
ing the way up the spiral stair. The whole scene was a 
liicture. "llie woman holding up her light at the end of the 
long jiassage, the old man with his lamp, the dark corners 
full of silence and mystery, the cold wind blowing as through 
an icy ravine. And the sensations of the young man, who had 
not even had those experiences of adventure which most 
yomig men have in these travelling days, whom poverty and 
idleness had kept at home in tame domestic comfort, were 
very strange and novel. He'" seemed to himself to be walking 
into a romance,* not into anv real place, but into some old 
storybookj a mystery of Udolpho, an antiquated and coven- 
lional region oi gloom and artificial alarms. 

“Come this way, my lord ; come this way,” said the old 
man ; “ the steps are a hit worn, for they’re auld, auld— as 
auld as the house. But we hope you’ll find everything as 
comfortable as circumstances will permit. We have had 
just twa three days to prepare, my mistress and me ; but 
we’ve done our best, as far,” he added, “ as circumstances 
will permit. This way, this way, my lord.” 

At the head of the stair everjdhing was black as night. 
The old man’s lamp threw his own somewhat fantastic 
shadow upon the wall of a narrow corridor as he heldjit up to 
guide the newcomer. Close to the top of the staircase, how- 
ever, there opened a door, through which a warm light was 
showing, and Walter, to his surprise, found himself in a 
comfortably furnished room with a cheerful fire, and a table 
covered for dinner, a welcome end to the discomfort 
and gloom of the arrival. The room was low, but large, 
and there were candles on the mantelpiece and table which 
.made a sort of twinkling illumination in the midst of the dark 
pannelled walls and the dark furniture. The room was lined 
Avith books at one end. It was furnished with comfortable 
sofas and chairs of modern manufacture. There Avas a 
curious dim mirror over the mantelshelf in a lieaA^^ gilt 
frame of old carving, one or tAvo dim old portraits huiig op- 
posite, the curtains Avere draAvn, the fire Avas bright, the 
Avhite tablecloth Avith an old-fashioned silver vase in the 
niiddle, and the candles burning, made a cheerful centre of 
light. At the further end was another door, open, Avhich ad- 
mitted to a bedroom, dim, but comfortable in the firelight. 
All this Avas encouraging. Walter threw himself into a chair 
Avith a sense that the situation altogether Avas im))roAung. 
Things cannot be so A^ery bad Avhen there is a fire and lights, 
and a prospect of dinner. He began to laugh at himself, 
when he took off his coat, and felt the Avarmth of tlie'gloAA'- 
ing fire. Everything around him Avas adapted for comfort. 
There Avas a little Avant of light Avhich left all the corners 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


95 


mysterious, and showed the portraits dimly, like half-seen 
spectators, looking down from the wall ; but the comfortable 
was much more present than the weird and uncanny which 
had so much predominated on his arrival. And when a din- 
ner which was very good and carefully cooked, and a bottle 
of wine, which, though he had not very much skill in that 
subject, Walter knew to be costly and fhie, had been served 
with noiseless care by Symington, the young man began to 
recover his spirits, and to think of the tradition which re- 
quired his presence here, as silly indeed, but without harm. 
^Vfter dinner he seated himself by the fire to think over the 
whole matter. It was not yet a fortnight since this moment- 
ous change had happened * in his life. Before that he had 
been without importance, without use in the Avorld, with 
little hope, with nothing he cared for sufficiently to induce 
him to exert himself one way or another. Now alter he had 
passed this curious probation, whatever it was, what a life 
opened before him ! He did not even know how important 
it was, how much worth living. It shone b '^ le him indis- 
tinctly as a sort of vague, general realization of all dreams. 
Wealth— that was the least of it; power to do whatever he 
pleased ; to affect other people’s lives, to choose for himself 
almost whatever pleased him. He thought of Parliament, 
even of government, in his ignorance ; he thought of travel, 
he thought of houses full of gayety and life. It was not as 
yet sufficiently realized to mate him decide on one thing or 
another. He preferred it as it was, vague— an indefinite mass 
of good things and glories to come. Only this ordeal, or 
whatever it was — those few days more or less that he was 
bound to remain at Kinloch Hour an, stood between him and 
his magnificent career. And after all, Kinloch Houran was 
nothing very terrible. It might be like the mysteries of 
Udolpho outside ; but all the mysteries of Hdolpho turned 
out, he remembered, quite explainable, and not so very 
alarming after all ; and these rooms, which bore the traces 
of having been lived in very lately, and which were quite 
adapted to be lived in, did not seem to afford much scope for 
the mysterious. There were certain points, indeed, in 
which they were defective, a want of air, something which 
(Xicasionally caught at his respiration, and gave him a sort 
of choked and stifled sensation ; but that was natui’al enough, 
so carefully closed as everything was, curtains drawn, every 
draught Avarded off. Sometimes he had an uneasy feeling 
as if somebody had come in behind him and was hanging 
about the back of his chair. On one occasion he even went 
so far as to ask sharidy, “ is it you, Symington V ' but, looking 
back, was ashamed of himself, for of course there wiis no- 
body there. He changed his seat, however, so as to face Bie 
door, and even went the length of opening it, and looking 
out to see if there was anyone about, The little corridor 


THE WIZARD^S SON. 


96 

seemed to ramble away into a darkness so great that the 
light of his candle did no more than touch its surface— the 
spiral staircase looked like a well of gloom. This made him 
shiver slightly, and a half wish to lock his door came over 
him, of which he felt ashamed as he turned back into the 
-cheerful light. 

After all, it was nothing but the sensation of loneliness 
which made this impression. He went back to Ins chair and 
once more resumed his thoughts or rather, was it not 
his thoughts— nay, his fancies— that resumed him, 

and fluttered around and about, pi'esenting to him a 
hundred swiftly changing scenes? He saw visions 
of his old life, detached scenes which came sud- 
denly up through the dai*kness and presented themselves 
before him— a bit of Sloebury High Street, with a group of 
his former acquaintances now so entirely separated from 
him; the little drawing-room at the cottage, with Julia 
Herbert singing him a song; Underwood’s rooms on that 
particular night when he had gone in, in search of something 
like excitement and had found everything so dull and flat. 
Xone of these scenes had any connection with his new be- 
ginning in life. They all belonged to the past, which was so 
entirely past and ovm\ But these Avere the scenes Avliich 
came with a sort of perversity, all broken, changing like 
badly managed views in a magic lantern, produced before 
him without any Avill of his. There w^as a sort of bcAvilder- 
ing effect in the way in which they swept along, one effa- 
cing another, all of them so aliep to the scene in wiiicli he 
found himself. He had to get up at last, shaking liimself as 
free of tlie curious whirl of unw^onted imagination as he 
could. No doubt his imagination was excited ; but hapi)ily 
not, he said to himself, by anything connected Avith the 
present scene in Avhich he found himsdf. Had it lieen roused 
by these strange surroundings, by the darkness and silence 
. that were about him, by the loneliness to Avhich he Avas so 
unused, he felt that there avius no telling Avhat he might see 
or think he saw ; but fortunately it Avas not in this Avay that 
his imagination worked. His pulse Avas quick. hoAA^ever,his 
heart beating, a quite involuntary excitement in* all hisbod- 
, ily faculties. He got up hastily and went to the booki- helAxs 
'Avhere he found, to his surprisk a large collection of novels 
and light literature, Tt seemed to Walter that his prede- 
cessor, whom he had never seen— the former Lord Erradeen 
Avho inhabited these rooms not very long ago— had been 
probably, like himself, anxious to cuiench the rising of his 
fancy iii the less exciting course of a fictitious drama, the 
conventional excitements of a story. He looked over the 
shelves Avith a curious sympathy for this unknoAvn person, 
whom indeed he had never thought much upon before. Did 
that unknoAvn know who was to succeed him ? Did he ever 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


97 

speculate upon Walter as Walter was now doing upon him ? 
He turned over the books with a strange sense of examining 
the secrets of his predecessor’s mind. They were almost all 
books of adventure and excitement. He took down, after a 
moment, a volume of Dumas, and returned to his easy chair 
by the lire, to lose himself in the breathless ride of 
d^Artagnan and the luckless fortunes of the three compan- 
ions. It answered the purpose admirably. A sudden lull came 
over his restless fancy. He was in great comfort, externally 
, warmed and fed and reposing after a somewhat weary day, 
and the spell of the great storyteller got hold of him. Pie 
was startled out of this equable calm when Symington came 
in to li.ght the candles in his bedroom Jind bring hot water, 
and ofter his services generally. Symington regarded him 
witli an approval which he did not think it worthy his 
while to dissemble. 

“ That’s right, my lord, that’s right,” he said. “ Reading’s 
a very fine thing when you Jiave too much to occupy your 
thoughts.” 

Walter was amused by this deliverance, and happily not 
impatient of it. That’s a new reason for reading^^’he said. 

‘‘But it is a real just one, if your lordship will permit 
me to say so. Keep you to your book, my lord • it’s just fine 
for putting other things out of your head. It’s Dumas you’re 
reacling ? I’ve tried that Ph*encn fellow myself, l)ut I cannot 
say that I made head or tail of him. He would have it that 
all that has happened in history was just at the mercy of a 
wheel! adventurers, two or three vagrants of P'renchmen. 
Xo, no, I may believe a great deal, but I’m not likely to be- 
lieve that.” 

” I see you are a critic, Symington ; and do you read for the 
same reason that you liave been suggesting to me ?— because 
you have too much to occupy your thoughts?” 

Well, pairtly, my lord, aiid pairtly just in my idle hours 
to pass the time. I liave made up your fire and lighted the 
(iaiidles, and everything is in order. AVili I wait upon your 

lordship until you’re inclined for your bed? or will I ” 

Symington made a significant pause, which it was not very 
difficult to interpret. 

“ You need not wait,” Walter said : and then, with an in- 
stinct which, he was half ashamed of, he asked, hurriedly, 
“ Whereabouts do you sleep ? ” 

“ That is just the difficulty,” said old Symington. “ I’m 
rather out oi call if your lordship should want anything. 
The only way will just be to come down the stairs, if your 
lordship will take tlie trouble, and ring the big bell. It 
would waken a’ the seven sleepers if it was rung at their 
lug; and I’m not so ill to waken when there is noise enough. 
Rut ye have everything to your hand, my lord. If you’ll 
just give a, glance into the other room, I can let yesee w^here 


gg THE W/ZAKD^S SON. 

everything is. There is the spirit lamp, not to say a small 
kettle by the fire, and there’s ” 

“ That will do,” said Walter. “ I shall not want anything 
more to-night.” 

The old servant went away with a glance round the 
room in which Walter thought there was some anxiety, and 
stopped again at the door to say “ Good night, my lord. It’s 
not that I am keen for my bed— if your lordship would like 
me to bide, or even to take a doze upon a chair ” 

“ Go to bed, old S3un,” said the young man with a laugh. 
The idea of finding a protector in Symington was somewhat 
ludicrous. But these interruptions disturbed him once 
more, and brought back his excitement ; he felt a sort of 
pang as he heard the old servant’s heavy step going down 
th§ winding stair, and echoing far away, as it seemed, into 
the bowels of the earth. Then that extreme and blighting 
silence which is like a sort of conscious death came upon the 
place. The thick curtains shut out every sound of wind and 
water outside as they shut out every glimpse of light. Wal- 
ter heard his pulses in his ears, his heart thumping, like the 
hammer of a machine. The whole universe seemed concen- 
trated in that only living breathing thing, which was him- 
self. He tried to resume his book, but the spell of the story 
was broken. He could no longer follow the fortunes of Athos 
l^orthos, and Aramis. Walter Methven thrust himself in 
front of these personages, and, though he was not half so 
amusing, claimed a superior importance by right of those 
pulses that clanged in his head like drums beating. He said 
to himself that he was very comfortable, that he had never ex- 
Xiected to be so well off . But he could not regain his com- 
posure or sense of well being. It was a little better ^yhen he 
went into his bedroom, the mere movement and passage 
from one room to another being of use to him. The sense of 
oppression and stagnation, however, soon became almost 
greater here than in the sitting-room. One side of the room 
was entirely draped in close drawn curtains, so that it was 
impossible to make out even where the windows were. He 
drew them aside with some trouble, for the draperies were 
very heavy, but not to much advantage. At first it seemed 
to him that there were no windows at all ; then he caught 
sight of something like a recess high in the wall: and climb- 
ing up found the hasp of a rough shutter, which covered a 
small square window built into the cave of a deep mason- 
ry. That this should be the only means of lighting an al- 
most luxurious sleeping chamber, bewildered him more and 
more; but it would not open, and let in no air, and the 
atmosphere became more and more stifling than ever in this 
revelation of the impossibility of renewing it. Finally he 
went to bed with a sort of rueful sense that there was the 
la^t citadel and refuge of a stranger beset by imaginations 


THE WrZARD\^ SON. 


99 


ill so weird and mysterious a place. He did not expect to 
sleep, but he determined that he would not, at least, oe the 
sport of his own fancies. 

It astonished Walter beyond measure to find himself 
waking in broad daylight, with Symington moving softly 
about thi> room, and a long window, the existence of which 
he had never suspected, facing him as he looked up from his 
pillows, after a comfortable night’s sleep Mingled shame 
and amusement made him burst into an uneasy laugh, as he 
realized this exceedmgiy easy end of his tribulations. 

“ Mrs. Macalister,” said Symington, '' would like well to 
know when your lordship is likely to be ready, to put down 
the trout at the right moment : for it’s an awdui pity to spoil 
a Loch Houran trout.” 


CHAPTER XI. 

To insist upon the difference between an impression 
made when we arrive, tired and excited at night, in a 
stmnge place, and that wdiich the same scene produces in 
the early freshness and new life of the morning, would be 
to deliver ourselves over to the reign of the truism. It 
wwld, however, have been inmossible to feel this with more 
force than Walter felt it. His sensations of alarm and 
excitement struck him not only as injustifiable but lu- 
dicrous. He laughed once more when he came out of his 
chamber into the warm and genial room, which had seemed 
to him «o mysterious and dark on the previous night. There 
were mndows upon either side of the fireplace, each in a 
deep recess like a small room, so great was the thickness of 
the wall. They looked out upon the mountains, upon the 
narrow end of the loch, all bubbling and sparkling in the 
sunshine, and dowpi upon the little grassy slope rough and 
micared for, yet green, wdiich w^as the only practicable 
entrance to the castle. The windows were not large, and the 
room still not very light, though the sunshme which ponred 
in at one side made a most picturesque effect oi h.gfft and 
shade. The portraits on the w^all were better than they had 
seemed, and had lost the inquisitive air of dissatisfied ms- 
pection which Walter’s imagination had given them. Ihe 
bookshelves at the end gave relief to the rooni:^ with their 
cheerful gilding and the subdued tone of their bindmgs. 
Walter thought of the chamber m the Pilgrim s Progres,^ 
turned towards the sunrising, the name of which w^as Peace. 
But peace was nof the thing most suggested at Kinloch 
Houran by any of the accessoiies about, and a vision oi the 


TOO 


THE WrZARD'E SO.K. 


cliilliiiess of tbe A’vay in the afternoon j and the force of 
the east wind when it came, crossed his mind in true 
nineteenth century criticism of the more poetical view. But 
In the meantime, the policy of enjoying the present was 
undeniable, especially when that present took the form of a 
Loch TTouran trout, fresh from the water, and cooked as fish 
only are under such conditions. lie looked back upon the 
agitations of the evening, and the reluctant aiigr^ sentiment 
with which he had come to this old house of his family with 
amused incredulity and shame. To think that he could be 
such an impressionable fool ! He dismissed it all lightly from 
his mind as he hurried over his breakfast, with the in- 
tention of getting out at once and exploring everything 
about. lie had even newspapers upon his table along with 
the fresli scones, tlie new-made butter, all the fresh pro- 
visions of the meal. To be sure, it was Glasgow and not 
London from which they came— but the world’s history was 
no less instant in them, flashing from all parts of the world 
into this home of the ancient ages. 

Ilis first inspection was of the castle itself, which he un- 
dertook under the auspices of old Symington and old 
Macalister, botli eager to explain and describe what it had 
been, as well as what it was. What it was did not consist 
of very much. “ My lord’s rooms,” those in which he had 
spent the night, w^ere the only habi table portion of the great 
pile. He was led through the roofless hall, with its mu- 
sicians’ gallery still perched high up and overshadowed with 
cano])ies of ashen houghs, vigoi*ous though leafless ; the 
guardroom, the supposed kitchen with its large chimney, 
the oblong space from east to west which was supposed to 
liave been the chapel. All was a little incoherent in the 
completeness of ruin. There was little of the stimulation 
of family pride to be got out of those desolate places. The 
destruction was too complete to leave room even for the 
facile web of imagination. The Crusader, about whom there 
was a legend a little too picturesque and romantic to bo 
true, or tbe lady wbo was only saved by his sudden appear- 
ance from unfaithfulness, were )iot more easy to conjure up 
within the inclosure of those shapeless walls than on any 
unremarkable spot wliere the story might have been told. 
Walter grew a little wearyg^ Symington and the old guar- 
dian of the bouse argued rir to wbicb was this division of 
the castle, and which that. He left them discussing the 
question, and climbed up by a rude stoir winch had been 
half improvised from the ruined projections of the masonry, 
to the crumbling battlements above. From thence he 
looked down upon a scene which was older than the oldest 
rum, yet ever fresh in perennial youth : the loch stretched 
out like a great mirror under the wintry blue of the sky and 
the dazzling Maze of the sunshine, reflecting everything, 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


lOI 


every speck of cloud a]>ove and every feathery twig and 
minute island below. There was no need to make believe 
to simulate unfelt enthusiasm, or endeavor to connect with 
unreal associations this wonderful and glorious scene. Per- 
haps there was in his mind something more in harmony 
with the radiance of nature than with the broken fragments 
of a history which he had no skill to piece up into life again. 
He stood gazing upon the scene in a rapture of silent delight. 
The hills in their robes of velvet softness, ethereal air- 
garments more lovely than any tissue ever woven in mortal 
loom, drew aside on either hand in the blue space and daz- 
zling atmosphere to open out this liquid vale of light, with its 
dark specks of islets, its feathery loanks^ all rustling witii 
leafless trees. Every outline and detail within its reach was 
turned into a line, a touch, more sweet by the flattering 
glory of the still water in which everything, was double. 
The morning freshness and sheen were still unbroken. It 
was like a new creation lying contemplating itself in the 
first ecstasy of consciousness. Walter was gazing upon this 
Avonderful scene when the sharp voice or old Macalister 
made him start, and take a step aside Avhich almost had 
serious consequences ; for he stepped back miAvarily upon 
the crumbling Avail, and might have fallen but for the 
violent grip or the ola man, who clutched him like a shaky 
Hercules, Avith a grasp AA'^hich Avas vigorous yet trem- 
bling. 

“ Lord’s sake take care,” he cried. His face flushed, then 
paled again Avith genuine emotion. “ Do you think Ave haA^e 
a store of young lads like you, that you Avill risk your life 
like yon ? and just in the -place Avhere tlie lady fell. ^h)ii 
have gh'eii me such a start I caima luvathe,’' he cried. 

To tell the truth, looking back np.on it, Walter himself 
did not like the look of tlie preci] ice which he had es- 
caped. 

“ Where the lady fell V ” lie asked A^ ith a little eagerness, 
as h(j (^amc to the battlement. 

“Oh, ay. I seldom bother my head about Avhat’s hap- 
pened, so to speak, tAvo or three days since. It Avas just 
there she fell. She has been bedridden ever since, from a’ 
I hear, Avhich just shoAvs the folly of venturing about an 
auld place Avithout somebody that knoAAAs hoAv to take, care 
of ye. What Avould have come of you yoursel’, that is the 
maister of a’, if auld Sandy Macalister liad not been there ? ” 

“Tliank you, Macalister, you shall find me grateful,” 
said Walter ; “ but Avho AA^as this lady ? two or three days ago, 
did you say ? ” 

“Years— years; did I no say years? Oh ay, it may be 
longer, twenty or thirty. I’m meaning just naething in a. 
life like mine. She had some silly story of being frighted 
Avith a gentleman that slie thought she saAv. They are keen 


t02 


THE WIZARDS SOH, 


jibout making up a story— women folk. She was just the 
sister to the man of business, ye’ll have heard of her,— a 
iU’etty bit thing, if that was of any consequence ; but, Lord’s 
sake, what’s that atween you and me, and you ignorant of 
everything ? ” the old man said. “ Do you see the chimneys 
yonder, and the gable end with the crow steps, as they call 
itf just pushing out among the trees ? That’s just your am 
shooting-box— they call it Auchnasheen. I’ll tell you the 
meanings of the names another time. Out beyond yonder, 
the big house away at the point, it’s a new place built for his 
diversion by one. of your new men. Yon island far away 
that’s bare and green is the island of Rest, where all the loch 
v^as once buried : and atween us and that there’s another 
isle with a gable end among the trees which is just the last 
place that’s left to an auld race to plant their feet upon. It’s 
a bonnie piece of water ; you that’s come from the south 
you’ll never have seen the like. I’ll tell you all the stories of 
the divers places, aud how they’re comiected with the Me’- 
^ ens that are chiefs of Loch Houran; for I wouldna give a 
button for that newfangled title of the Lords Erradeen.” 

“ It has lasted however for some centuries,” said Walter, 
with a sudden sense of displeasure which he felt to be ab- 
surd enough. 

And what is that in a family ? ” said old Macalister. “ I 
tliiiik nothing of it. A hundred years or two that never 
(touiits one way nor another ; it’s nae antiquity. If that 
nonsense were true about the Warlock lord, he would be but 
twa hundred and fifty at the present speaking, or there- 
al)outs, and a’ that have ever thought they saw him repre- 
sent him as a fine personable man. I have never had that 
pleasure myself,” the old man said with his shrill laugh. 

Where are you going, my young gentleman? Ye’ll just 
go down like a stane and end in a rattle of dust and mortar, 
if you’ll not be guided by me,” 

“ Let you his lordship alone, Sandy,” cried the voice of 
Symington, intermingled with pants and sobs as he climbed 
up to the parapet. “ Ye must not occupy my lord’s time 
with your old craiks. You would perhaps like, my lord, to 
Ausit Auchnasheen, where the keeper will be on the outlook : 
oi' maybe it would be better to organize your day’s shoot- 
ing for to-morrow, when you have lookit a little about you : 
or ye would perhaps like to take a look at the environs, or 
see the factor who is very anxious as soon as your lordship 
has a moment ” 

“ Oh ! and there is the minister that can tell ve a’ about 
the antiquities, my lord : and traces out the an Id outline of 
the castle grandly, till ye seem to see it in all its glory — 

“ Or— ” Symington had begun, when Walter turned at 
bay. He faced the old men with a half laughing defiance. 
“ I see plenty of boats about,” he said. “ I am going out to 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


103 

explore the loch. 1 want no attendance, or any help, but 
that you will be good enough to leave me to myself.” 

“ We’ll do that, my lord. I will just run and cry upon 
Duncan that is waiting about ” 

The end of all this zeal and activity was that when 
Walter found himself at last free and on the shining bosom 
of the loch, he was in a boat too heavy for his own sole 
management, sharing the care of it with Duncan, who was 
of a taciturn disposition and answered only when spoken to. 
This made the arrangement almost as satisfactory as if lie 
had been alone, for Duncan v/as quite willing to obey and 
yield a hearty service without disturbing his young master 
with either questions or remarks. Re was a large young 
man, strong and well knit though somewhat heavy, with a 
broad smiling face, red and freckled, with honest blue eyes 
sunder sandy eyelashes, and a profusion of strong and curly 
reddish hair. He beamed upon Lord Erradeen with a sort 
of friendly admiration and awe, answering, “ Ay, my lord,” 
and “No, my lord,” always with the same smile of general 
benevolence and readiness to comply with every desire. 
When they had got beyond hail of the castle, from which 
Symington and Macalister watched them anxiously, Duncan 
mutely suggested the elevation of a mast and setting of the 
sail which the vessel was furnished with, to which Walter 
assented with eagerness: and soon they were skimming 
along before a light wind as if they had wuigs. And now 
began perhaps the most pleasurable expedition that Walter 
had ever made* in his life. Escaped from the ruinous old 
pile, within which he had feared he knew not what, escaped 
too from the observation and inspection of the two^ old men 
so much better acquainted with the history of his family 
than himself, whom he felt to be something between kee])- 
ers and schoolmasters — fairly launched forth upon the world, 
with nothing to consult but his OAvn pleasure, Walter felt 
his spirits rise to any height of adventure. There was not 
indeed any very wil'd adventure probable, but he was not 
much used to anything of the kind, and the sense of freedom 
and freshness in everything was intoxicating to the young 
man. The small boat, the rag of a sail, the lively wind that 
drove them along, the rushing ripple under their keel all 
delighted him. He held the helm with a sense of pleasure 
almost beyond an^hing he had ever known, feeling all the 
exhilaration of a discoverer in a new country, and for the 
first time the master of himself and his fate. Duncan said 
nothing, but grinned from ear to ear, when the young 
master m his inattention to, or to tell the truth ignorance 
of. the capabilities of the boat, turned the helm sharply, 
bringing her up to the wind in such a way as to threaten 
t he most summary end for the voyage. He kept his eye on 
the rash steersman, and Walter was not aware of the risks 


104 


THE WJZARHS SON, 


he ran. He directed his little vessel now here, now there, 
with absolute enjoyment, running in close ashore to exam- 
ine the village, turning about again in a wild elation to visit 
an island, running tlie very nose of the boat into the rocky 
banks or feathery bush wood. How it was that no harm 
came as they thus darted from point to point Duncan never 
knew. He kood ui) roused to watchfulness, with his eyes 
intent on the jnovenients of his master ready to remedy any 
indiscretion. It was in tlie nature of such undeserved vigi- 
lance that the object of it Avas never aware of it, but to ])e 
sure Duncan had his own life to think of too. 

They had thus swept triumphantly down the loch, the 
wind favoring, and apparently watching over the rash voy- 
ager as carefully as, and still more disinterestedly thaii, 
Duncan. The motion, the air, the restless career, the 
novelty and the freedom enchanted Walter. He felt like a 
boy in his lirst escapade, Avith an intoxicating sense of in- 
dependence and scorn of (langer Avlnch gave zest to the in- 
dependence. At ev(n‘y new zigzag he made, Duncan but 
grinned the more. He uttered the (hielic name of every 
point and' isle, l)rietiy, Avith guttural depth, out of his chest, 
as they Avent careering along before the Avind. The boat 
Avas like ah inquisitive visitor, too open for a spy, poking into 
every corner. At length they came to an island standing 
high out. of the water, Avith a rocky beach, upon which a 
boat lay carefully Iiauled up, and a t’eathery crest of trees, 
tine clumps of hr, fringed and surrounded by a luxuriant 
groAvth of lighter Avood. In the midst of this fine network 
of branches, such as Ave call bare, being leafless, but which 
in reality are all astir Avith life restrained, broAvn purple 
buddings eager to start and held in like hounds in a leash- 
rose the solid outline of a house, built upon the ridge of 
rock, and appeared like a sliadow in the midst of all the 
anatomy of the trees. 

^ “ That Avill be joqst the leddy’s,” cried Duncan ; at Avhich 
Walter’s lieart, so liglit in liis bosom, gave an additional 
leap of pleasure. He steered it so close that Duncan’s vigi- 
lance was doubly taxed, for the least neglect aa^ouM have 
sent the little vessel ashore. Walter examined the little 
landing, the I’ocky i>ath that led up the bank, Avinding 
among the trees, and as much as could be made out of the 
house Avith keen interest. The man AAuth the red shirt, who 
had been the young lady’s boatman on the i)reAious day, ap- 
peared at the further point as they went on. He Avas fishing 
from a rock that projected into the water, and turning to 
gaze upon the nuAvary boat, with astonished eyes, shouted 
something in Gaelic to Duncan, who nodded good-humoredly 
a great many times, and implied Avith a laugli in the same 
tongue,— 

“ Yon Avill joost be Hamish,” said Duncan. 


rrin wrzA/uys son-. 


‘‘ What is he saying- ? ” cried Walter. 

“ He will just be telling us to mind where we are going, 
said Duncan, imperturbably. 

“ Tell him to mind his own business,” cried Walter, with 
a laugh. “And who is IlaTuish, and who is the leddyV 
Come, tell me all about it.” His interest in the voyage 
flagged a little at this point. 

DuncaiJ, thus interrogated, was more put to it than by the 
dangerous course they had hitherto been running. 

“ It will joost be the leddy,” he said ; “ and Hamish, that’s 
her man : and they will joost be living up there like ithci- 
persons, and fearing God: fery decent folk— oh, joost fery 
decent folk.” 

“ I never doubted that. But who are they, and what are 
they ? And do you mean to say they live there, on that rock, 
in winter, so far north ? ” 

Walter looked up at the dazzling sky, and repented his 
insinuation : but he was, alas, no better than an Englishman, 
when all was said, and he could not help a slight shiver as 
he looked back. Hamish who had made a fine point of color 
on his projecting rock, had gone from that point, and was 
visible in his red shirt mounting the high crest of the island 
with hurried appearances and disappearances as the broken 
nature of the ground made necessary. He had gone, there 
seemed little doubt, to intimate to the inhabitants, the ap- 
pearance of the stranger. This gave Walter a new thrill of 
])leasure, but it took away his eagerness about the scenery. 
He lay back languidly, neglecting the helm, and as he dis- 
tracted Duncan’s attention tooj they had nearly run aground 
on the low beacli of the next island. When this diraculty 
was got o;^er, Walter suddenly discovered that they luifl 
gone lar enough, and might as well be making their way 
homeward, which was more easily said than done ; for tin* 
wind, which had hitherto served Tlieir i>urposes nolily, was 
no longer their friend. They made a tfick or two, and crept 
along a little, but afterwards resigned themselves to shii> 
the sail and take the oars, wliichwas not so exhilarating nor 
so well adapted to show* the beauty of the landscape. It 
took them some time to make their way once more past the 
rocky point, and along the edge of the island which attracted 
Walter’s deepest interest, but to viiich he could not per- 
suade Duncan to give any name. 

“It was joost be the leddy’s,” tlie boatman insisted on 
saying, with a beaming face; but either his English or his 
knowledge was at fault, and he went no further. 

Walter’s heart beat with a kind of happy anxiety, a keen 
but unpleasant suspense as he swept ]i‘ ^ oar out of the water, 
and glanced behind him to measure ' mw near they were to 
the landing, at which he liad a. nresentiment something 
more interesting than Hamish might be seen. And, as it 


o6 


TH?: W/ZARD'S ROK. 


turned out, he had not deceived liimself. But what he' saw 
was not what he expected to see. 

The lady on the bank was not his fellow-traveller of yes- 
terday. She was what Walter to himself, with much dis- 
appointment, called an old lady, wrapped in a large furred 
mantle and white fleecy wrap about her head and snoulders. 
She stood and waved her hand as Walter’s boat came slowly 
within range. 

' “ Yon wall be joost the leddy,” said Duncan of the few 
Avords ; and Avith one great SAA'eep of his oar he turned the 
boat toAvards the landing. It Avas the man’s doing, not 
the master’s ; but the master Avas not sorry to take advan- 
tage of the sudden guidance. It Avas all done in a moment, 
Avithout intention. ITamish stood ready to secure the boat, 
and before he had time to think, Walter found himself on 
tlie little clearing above the stony bit of beach, hat in hand, 
glowing Avith surprise and pleasure, and receiving the 
Avarniest of Avelcomes. 

You Avill forgiA^e me for just stopping you on your Avay,” 
the lady said; “butT Avas fain to see you. Lord Erradeen, 
for your father and I Avere children together. I Avas Violet 
Montrose. You must haA^e heard him speak of me.” 

" I hope,” said AYalter, Avitli his best boAv, and most in- 
gratiating tone, “ that you Avill not consider it any fault of 
hiine ; but I don’t remember my father ; he died AAdien I Avas 
a child.” 

“ Dear me,” cried the lady ; “ hoAv could I be so foolish ! 
Tx)oking at you again, I see you Avould not be old enough for 
that ; and, iioav I remember, he married late, and died soon 
after. Well, there is no harm done. Weave just country 
neighbors, and as I Avas great friends AAdth Walte^’ Metlwen 
some fiA^e-and-forty years ago ” 

“I hope,” said the young man with a boAv and smile, 
“that you AAill be so good as to be friends Avitli Walter 
Methven noAv: for that is the name under Avhich I knoAv 
inyself.” 

“ Oh, Lord Erradeen,” the lady said, Avith a little flutter 
of pleasure. Such a speech AAnuld be piAitty from any young 
man ; but made by a young lord,- in all the flush of his novel 
lionors, and by far the greatest potentate of the district, 
there AA^as no one up the loch or doAvn the loch Avho Avould 
not haA^e been gratified. “ It is just possible,” she said, after 
a momentary pause, “that haAung been brought up in Eng- 
land, and deprived of your father so earlj^ you may not know 
much about your neighbors, nor eA^en AAdio Ave are, in this bit 
island of ours. We are the Foresters of Eaglescairn, AAdioih no 
doubt ye have heard of ; and I am one of the last of the Mon- 
troses— alas I that I should say so. I ha\'e but one of a large 
family left Avith me ; and Oona and me, Ave have just taken 
advantage of an old family relic that came from iny side of 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


107 

the house, and have taken up our habitation here. I hear 
she must nave travelled with you yesterday on the coach, 
not thinking who it was. Oh. yes ; news travels fast at this 
distance from the world. I tliink the wind blows it, or the 
water carries it. All the loch by this time "s aware of Lord 
Erradeen’s arrival. Indeed,” slie added, vdth a little laugh, 
“ you know, my lord, we all saw the light.” 

She was a woman over fifty, but fair and slight, with a 
willowy figure, and a comidexion of which many a youngei- 
woman might have been proud ; and there Avas a little airi- 
ness of gesture and tread about her, which probably thirty 
years before had been the pretty affectation, half-natural, 
half-artificial, of a beauty, and which still kept up the tradi- 
tion of fascinating powers. The little toss of her head, tlu* 
gesture of her hands, as she said the last words, the liaii- 
a K'ligetic laugh as if excusing herself for a semi-absurdity, 
were all characteristic and amusing. 

‘'You know,” she added, '‘in the Ilighlands we are 
allowed to be superstitious,” and repeated the little laugh at 
herself Avith which she deprecated offence. 

What is it supposed to mean ?” Walter asked, someAvliat 
eagerly. “ Of course there is some natural explanation whicli 
will be simple enough. But I prefer to take the old explana- 
tion, if 1 Imew what it Avas.” 

‘‘ And so do Ave,” she said, quickly. “We are just ready 
to SAvear to it, man and Avoman of us on the loch. Some say 
it is a sign the head of the house is coming— some that it is 
a call to him to come and meet— .Dear me, there is Oona 
calling. And where is Hamish? I Avill not have the child 
kept Avaiting,” said the lady, looking round her Avith a little 
nervous impatience. 

She had begun to lead the Avay upAAm'd by a winding path 
among the rocKS and trees, and noAv paused, a little breath- 
less, to look doAvn toAvards the landhig-place, and clap tier 
hands impatiently. 

“ Hamish is aAvay, mem,” said the Avornan Avhom Waltei* 
had seen on the coach, and Avho noAv met them coming doAvji 
the Avinding; path. She looked at him Avith a cordial smile, 
and air of kindly Avelcome. It Avas evident that it did not 
o ‘ciir to Mysie that her salutations might be inappropriate. 
“ You’re very welcome, sir, to wour ain country,” she said, 
with a curtsey Avhich Avas pblite rather than humble. 
Walter felt that she Avould have offered him her hand, On 
the smallest encouragement, Avith a kindly familiarity Avhicli 
conveyed no disrespect. 

“ Y ou should say my lord, Ylysie,” her mistress remarked. 

“ Deed, mem, and so I should ; but Avhen you’re no much 
in the Avay o’t, ye get confused. I said, as soon as I heard 
t he ncAvs, that it would be the young gentleman on the coach, 
and I had just a feeling a’ the time that it Avas nae tourist. 


io8 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


but a kent face. Hamish is away, mem. I tell him he hears 
MissOona’s foot on the bank, before ever she cries upon 
him ; and yonder he is just touching the shore, and her ready 
to jump in.” ^ , r... 

The party had reached a little platform on the slope. The 
path was skilfully engineered between two banks, clothed 
with ferns and grasses, and still luxuriant with a vivid green, 
though the overhanging trees were all bare. Here and 
there a litde opening gave a point of repose and extended 
view. Mrs. Forrester paused and turnecl round to point out 
to her visitor the prospect that now lay before them. She 
was a little breathless and glad of the pause, but it did not 
suit her character to say so. She pointed round her with a 
little triumph. They were high enough to see the loch on 
either side, looking down upon it tlirough the fringe of 
branches. Opposite to this was the mainland which at that 
spot formed a little bay, thickly wooded with the dark green 
01 the fir woods, amid A\diich appeared the gables of a sort of 
ornamental cottage. Nearer the eye was the road, and un- 
derneath the road on the beach stood a little slight figure in 
the closely fitting garb which Walter recognized. She had 
evidently been set down from a wagonette full of a lively 
party which waited on the high road to see her embark. It 
was impossible to hear what they were saying, but the air 
was full of a pleasant murmur of’ voices. 

“ It is the young Campbells of Ellermore,” said Mrs. For- 
rester, waving her handkerchief towards the group. “ Oona 
has been spending last night with them, and they have 
brought her back. They will all be astonished, iVIysie, to see 
me standing here with a gentleman. Dear me, they will all 
be saying, who has Mrs. Forrester got with her ” 

“They will think,” said Mysie, “just that it’s Mr. .James 
or Mr. Ronald come home.” 

“ Ah, Mysie, if that could be ! ” said the ladv of the isle ; 
and she put her hands together, which were thin and white, 
and ornamented by a number of rings, with a pretty conven- 
tional gesture of maternal regret. .Walter stood looking on 
with mingled amazement and pleasiu'e ; pleasant as if he 
were at a play with all the new indications of domestic his- 
tory which were opening to him, and with a sense of enjoy- 
ment through all his being. When the girl sprang into the 
boat, and Ilamish, conspicuous in his red shirt, pushed off 
into the loch, the tumult of good-bys became almost articu- 
late. He laughed to himself under his breath, remembering 
all the greetings he had heard along the line of railway, the 
incognitious at every station. 

“ Yoiii' daughter seems to know everybody,” he said. 

“ And liow could she lielp knowing every person,” cried 
■Mysie, 1 aking the words, as it were, out of her mistress’s 
month, “ N\ hen she was born and brought up on the loch, 


THE WIZARD'S SON", 


log 

and never one to turn her back upon a neebor, gentle or 
.simple but just adored wherever she goes ? ” 

Oh, whisht, Mysie, whisht ! we are partial,” said Mrs. 
Forrester with her little antiquated graces; and then she 
invited Lord Erradeen to continue his walk. 

It was the full blaze of day, and the view extended as 
they went higher up to the crest of rock upon which the 
house was set. It was built of irregular reddish stone, all 
cropped with lichens where it was visible, but so covered 
with clinging plants that very little of the walls could l )e 
seen. The rustic porch was built something like a bee-hive, 
with young, slim-growing saplings for its pillars, and chairs 
placed within its shelter. There were some flower-beds laid 
out around, in which a few autumn crocuses had struggled 
into pale bloom — and a number of china roses hung half 
opened against the side of the house. The roofs were partly 
blue slates, that most prosaic of comfortable coverings, and 
partly the rough red tiles of the country, which shone warm 
through the naked boughs. 

Every liardy plant could bear 

J.och Katrine's keen and searching air,” 

was garlanded about the house, the little lawii was as green 
as velvet, the china roses were pale but sweet. Behind the 
house were the mossed apple trees of a primitive orchard 
among the rocky shelves. It lay smiling in the sun, with 
the silver mirror of the lake all round, and every tint and 
outline doubled in the water. From the door the dark old 
castle of Kinloch llouran stood out against the silent dark- 
ness of the hill. Little rocky islets, like a six)rt of nature, 
too small to be inhabited by anything bigger than rabbits, 
lay all reflected in broken lines of rock and brushwood, be- 
tween Walter’s old castle and this romantic house. They 
were so visible, one to the other, that the mere ]:)Ositioii 
seemed to form a link of connection between the inhabitpts. 

“ We cannot but take an interest in you, you see. Lord 
Erradeen, for we can never get out of sight of you, said 
Mrs. Forrester. ^ 

And “ I think the old place looks better from here than 
any other view I have seen,” W alter added, almost in the 
same breath. , ^ ^ ... 

They laughed as they spoke together. It was not possible 
to be more entirely “ country neighbors.” The young man 
had a fantastic feeling that it was a sort of flattery to himseli 
that his house should be so entirely the centre of the iaiicl- 
scape. He followed the lady into the house with a little re- 
liKflance, the scene was so enchanting. Inside, the roofs 
w ere low, but the rooms well sized and corfifortabie. I hey 
were full of curiosities of every kind ; weapons from distant 


no 


THE WIZARD^ S SON 


countries, trophies of what is called “ the chase ” hung upon 
the wall of the outer hall. The drawing-room was full of 
articles from India and Chma, carved ivories, monsters in 
porcelain, all the wonders that people used to send home be- 
fore we got Japanese shops at every corner. An air of gentle 
refinement was everywhere, with somethmg, too, in the many 
ornaments, little luxuries, and daintinesses which suggested 
the little minauderies of the old beauty, the old-fasmoned 
airs and grace e that had been irresistible to a previous gene- 
ration. 

“ Toil will just stav and eat your luncheon with us. Lord 
Erradeen. I might nave been but poor company, an old 
woman as I am getting but, now that Oona is coming, I 
need not be too modest ; tor, though there will not be a 
grand luncheon, there will be company, which is always 
something. And sit down and tell me something about your 
father and the lady he niariied, and where you have been 
living all this time.” 

Walter laughed. “Js it all my humble history you want 
me to tell you ? ” he said. “ It is not very much. I don’t 
remember my father, and the lady he married is— my 

mother, you know. The best mother But I have not 

been the best of sons. I was an idle fellow, good for nothing 
a little while ago. Nobody knew what was going to come 
of me. I did nothing but loat, if you know what that means.” 

Ah, that I do,’^so-id 31rs. Forrester ; “ that was just like 
my Jamie. But now they tell me he is the finest officer ” 

Walter paused, but the lady was once more entirely 
attention, listening ^vith her hands clasped, and her head 
raised to his with an ingratiating sidelong look. He 
laughed. “ They all made up their minds 1 was to be good 
lor nothing ” 

.“Yes,” murmured IMrs. Forrester, softly, half .closing her 
eyes and shaking her head, “ that was just like, my l>ob — 
till he took a thought : and now he is planting colfee in 
Ceylon and doing well. Yes ? and then ?” 

“ An old man arrived one evening,” said Waller, half 
laughing, ‘ and told me— that I was Lord Erradeen. And 
do you knoAv, from that moment nobody, not even I myself, 
would believe that I had ever loafed or idled or been good 
for nothing.” 

There was a pause, in Avhich Walter thought he heard 
^me one move behind him. But no sound reached Mrs. 

P orrester, who responded eagerly— 

1 present Eagiescairn, was just of the same 

kind, sne said reflectively. She had a comparison ready 
for every case that could be suggested— “ till he came of age. 
it was m the will that they were to come of age only at 
twenty-five, and till then I had a sore time. Oh, Oona, my 
clear, IS that you? And had you a pleasant evening. Here 


THE WriARD\^ SOH. 


Ill 


IS young Lord Erradeeii that has come in, most kindly, I’m 
sure, to tell me about his father, that I knew so well. And 
it appears you met upon the coach yesterday. Come away, 
my dear, come away ! And that was just most curious that, 
knowing nothing of one another, you should meet upon the 
coach.” 

Oona came in lightly, in her outdoor dress. She gave 
Walter a look wiiicli was very friendly. She had paused for 
a moment at the door, and she had heard his confession. It 
seemed to Oona that what he said wa: generous and manly. 
She was used to forming ciuick impressions. She had been 
annoyed when she had he'" rd from Hamish of the visitor, 
but her mind changed when she heard what he said. She 
came up to him and held out her hand. The fresh air was 
in her face, which Walter thought was like the morning, all 
bright and fresh and full of life. She made him a little 
curtsey with much gravity, and said in the pretty voice 
which was so fresh and sweet, and with that novelty of 
accent which had amused and delighted the young man, 
“ You are Avelcome to your own country. Lord Erradeen.” 

'‘Now that is very pretty of you, Oona,” cried her 
mother. “I never thought you would remember to pay 
your little compliment, as a well-bred person should ; for, to 
tell the truth, sue is just too brusque— it is her fault.” 

“ Hamish told me what to say,’^ said Oona, with a ^uice 
of provocation. “He is a very well-bred person. H^told 
me I was to bid my lord welcome to his own.” 

“ O, my dear, you need not take away the merit of it, as 
if you had not thought of it yourself,” said the mother, 
aggrieved ; “ but run away and take off your hat, and let us 
have our lunch, for Lord Erradeen has been all the morning 
on the water and he will be hungry, and you are all blown 
about with the wind.” 

The young people exchanged looks, while Mrs. Forrester 
made her little protest. There was a sort of laughing inter- 
change between them, in which she was mocking and he 
apologetic. Why, neither could have said. They under- 
stood each other, though they by no means clearly under- 
stood each what he and she meant. There was to be a little 
war between them, all m good humor and good fellowship, 
not insipid agreement and politeness. The next hour was, 
Walter thought, the most pleasant he had ever spent in his 
life. He had not been ignorant of such enjovments before. 
^Vhen we said that various mothers in Sloebury had with 
the first news of his elevation suffered a sudden pang of 
self-reproach, to think how thev had put a stop to certain 
passages, the end of which might now have been to raise a 
daughter to the peerage, it must have been understood that 
Walter was not altogether a novice in the society of women ; 
but this liarl a new flavor which Avas delightful to him. It 


/ 


1 T2 


THE WIZARD'S SO A- . 


had been pleasaiii eiiougli in the cottaj»e, wlien Julia I [(uhrrt 
sang, and on other occasions not uec(‘ssaiy to entei- into. 
But on tliis romantic isle, where the sound of tlie locli nrOn. 
the rocks made a soft accompaniment to every 'liing, in a 
retirement which no vulgar interi’uption could l eacn, with 
the faded beauty on one side, scarcely able to forget the old 
pretty mannerisms of conquest even in her real inaternal 
kindness and frank Highland hospitality, and the girl, witli 
her laughing defiance on the other, he felt himself to have 
entered a new chapter of history. The Avhole new world 
into which he had come became visible to liim m their ccn 
versation. He heard how he himself had been looked for, 
and how “the whole locli ’’ had known something about him 
for years before he had ever heard of Loch Ilouran. “We 
used to know you as the ‘ Phiglish lad,’ ” Oona said, w ith her 
glance of mischief. All this amused Walter more than 
words can say. The sun was dropping towai'ds the west 
before— escorted to the landing place by both the ladies, and 
taken leave of as an old friencl— he joined the slow-spoken 
Buncan, and addressed himself to the homeward voyage. 
Duncan had not been slow of speech in the congenial com- 
pany of Hamish. Thev had discussed the new-comer at 
length, with many a shaft of humor and criticism, during 
1 he visit which Duncan had paid to the kitchen . He blushed 
not now, secure in the stronghold of his unknown tongue, to 
hrea^ off in a witty remark at Walter’s expense as he 
1 urned to his master his beaming smile of devotion. They 
set off together, master and man, happy yet regretful, upon 
their homeward way. And it was a tough row back to 
Kinloch Houran against the fresh, and not too quiet High- 
land wind. 


CHAPTER XI 1. 

The castle looked more grim aiid ruined than ever as 
Walter set foot once more upon the rough grass of the 
mound behind. He dismissed the smiling Duncan with re- 
gret. As he went up to the door, which now stood open, he 
thought to himself with relief that another day would finish 
his probation here, and that already it was more than half 
over ; but next moment remembered that the end of. his 
stay at Kinloch Houran would mean also an end of inter- 
course with his new friends, wliich gave a different aspect 
to the matter altogether. At the door of the castle old 
Macalister was waiting with a look of anxiety, 

“ Ye’ll have had no luncheon,” he said, “ and here’s Mr. 
Shaw the factor waiting to see ye.” 

^lacalister had not the manners of Symington, and 


THE WrZARDK^ EON. 


Walter already felt that it was a curious eccentricity on tluj 
part of the old' man to leave out his title. The factor was 
seated waiting in the room upstairs ; he was a middle-aged 
man, with grizzled, reddish locks, the prototype in a higrn'r 
('lass of Duncan in the boat. He got up with a cordial 
friendliness which Walter began to feel characteristic, but 
which was also perhaps less respectful than might have 
l)een supposed appropriate, to meet him. He had a great 
deal to say of business which to Walter was still scarcely in- 
telligible. There were leases to renev', and there was some 
(juestion about a number of crofter families, which seemed 
to liave been debated with the former lord, and to have 
formed tlie subject of much discussion 

“There is that question about the crofters at the Truach- 
(Tjas,” Mr. Shaw' said. 

“ What crofters ? or rather what are crofters ? and what 
is the question and where is the Truach-Glas? Lord Plrra- 
deen said. 

He pronounced it, alas ! Truack, as ho still called loch, 
lock — which made the sensitive natives shudder. Jtir. Shaw 
looked at him with a little disapproval. He felt that tlu' 
English lad should have been more impressed by his nev' 
inheritance, and more anxious to acquire a mastery of all the 
facts connected with it. If, instead of wandering 'about the 
Joch all the morning, he had been looking up the details of 
the business and the boundaries of the estate, and studying 
ihe map! But that not being the case, of course there 'vns 
nothing to lie done but to explain. 

“ 1 luid thought that Mr. Milnathort would have put the 
needs of the estate more clearly before you. There are 
several questions to be settled. I don’t know what may be 
your views as to a landlord’s duties. Lord Erradeen ” 

“ I have no views,” said Walter ; “ I am quite impartial. 
You must recollect that T have only been a landlord for a 
fortnight.” 

“But I suppose,” said the factor somewhat severely, 
“ that the heir to such a fine property has had some kind of 
a little training?” 

“ I have ha(i no training-~not the slightest. I had no in- 
formation even that I was the heir to any proi)erty. You 
must consider me as entirely ignorant, hut reydy to learn.” 

Shaw looked at him with some surprise, but severely 
still. “ It IS very curious,” he said, as if that too had been 
Walter’s fault, that you did not know you were the heir. 
We knew very well liere; but the late lord was like nmst 
])eople, not very keen about his successor ; and then he was 
a comparatively young man when he died.” 

“1 know nothing of my predecessor,” said Walter. 
“ What was the cause of his death ? I should like to hear 
something about him. Several of them must have died 


114 


THE WIZARD^ S SON, 


voung;, 1 suppose, or I, so far off, could never have become 
fhe heir.” 

The factor looked at him keenly, hut with doubtful eyes. 

There are secrets in all families, my Lord Erradeen,” he 
said. 

“Are there ? I thought that was rather an old-fashioned 
sentiment. I don’t think, except that I was not always 
virtuously occupied, that there was any secret in mine.” 

“And I am sure there is no secret in mme,” said Mr. 
Shaw, energetically ; “ but then you see I am not, and you 
were not till a very recent date, Lord Erradeen. There is a 
kind of somethmg in the race that I will not characterize. 
It is a kind of a melancholy turn ; the vulgar rumors ye will 
have heard, to which I attach no credence. It is little worth 
while living in the nmeteenth century,” the factor said with 
emphasis, “ if ye are to be subject to delusions like that.” 

“ I tell you 1 am quite i^orant ; and, except by hints 
which I could not understand, Mr. Milnathort did not give 
me any information. Speak plainly, I want to know what 
the mystery is ; why am I liere m tins tumbledomi old 
place?” Walter cried with an accent of impatience. 

Shaw kept a watchful eye upon him, with the air of a 
man whom another is trying to deceive. 

“ It is something in the blood, I’m thinking,” the factor 
said. “ They all seem to find out there’s a kind of eontrariet}^ 
m life, which is a thing we all must do to be sure, but gener- 
ally without any fatal effects. After a certain age they all 
seem to give way to it. I hope that you^ my lord, being out 
of the direct line, will escape : the populace~if ye can accept 
their nonsense— say it’s a— well, something supernatural— a 
kind of an influence from him they call the Warlock Lord.” 
Shaw laughed, but somewhat uneasily, apologetically. “ I 
think shame to dwell upon such absurdity,” he said. 

“ It does sound very absurd.” 

“ That is just it— nonsense ! not worth the consideration 
of sensible men. And I may say to you, that are, I hope, of 
a more wholesome mind, that they are terribly given up to 
caprice in this family. The Truach-Glas crofters have been up 
and down twenty times. The late lord made up his mind he 
would let them stay, and then that they must go, and again 
that he woukhjiist leave them their bits of places, and then 
that he would help them to emigrate ; and after all, I had 
the order that they were to be turned out, bag and baggage. 
I could not And it in my heart to do it. I just put off, and 
put off, and here he is dead ; and another,” said Shaw, with 
a suppressed tone of satisfaction, “ come to the throiib. And 
you’re a new man and a young man, and belong to your own 
century, not to the middle ages,” the factor cried with a 
little vehemence. Then he stopped himself, with a “ I beg 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


115 

your pardon, my lord; I am perhaps saying more than I 
ought to say.” 

Walter made no reply. He was not sure that he did not 
think the factor was going too far, for though he knew so 
little of his family, he already felt that it was something not 
to be subjected to discussion by common men. These anim- 
adversions touched his pride a little; but he was silent, 
too proud to make any remark. He said, after a pause, — 

don’t know that 1 can give my oi)inion without a fur- 
ther acquaintance with the facts. If I were to do so on so 
slight a knowledge, I fear you might think that a caprice 
too.” 

The factor looked at him with a still closer scrutiny, and 
took the hint. There is nothing upon which it is so neces- 
sary to understand the permitted limit of observation as in 
the discussion of family peculiarities. Though he was so 
little responsible for this, and even so little acquainted with 
them, it was impossible that Lord Erradeen should not 
associate himself with his race. Mr. Shaw got out his 
papers, and entered upon the questions in which the opinion 
of the new proprietor was important, without a word further 
about the late lord and the family characteristics. He 
explained to Walter at length the position of the crofters, 
with their small holdings, who in bad seasons got into 
arrears with their rents, and sometimes became a burden 
upon the landlord in whom, so far north, there Avas some 
admixture of a Highland chief. The scheme of the estate 
altogether was of a mixed kind. There were some large 
sheep farms and extensive moors still intermingled with 
glens more populated than is usual in these regions. Some 
of them were on lands but recently acquired, and the crofters 
in particular were a burden transmitted by purchase, which 
the father of the last lord had made. It was oelievedthat 
there had been some covenant in the sale by which the rights 
of the poor people were secured, but this had fallen into for- 
getfulness, and there was no reason in law why Lord Erra- 
deen should not exercise all the rights of a proprietor and 
clear the glen, as so manv glens had been cleared. This Avas 
the first question that the new lord would have to decide. 
The humble tenants were all under notice to leave, and 
indeed AA^ere subject to eviction as soon as their landlord 
pleased. It Avas with a kind of horror that Walter listened 
to this account of his ncAV possibilities. 

“ Eviction ! ” he said ; “ do you mean the sort of thing 
that happens in Ireland ? ” He held his breath in unfeigned 
dismay and repugnance. “ I thought there was nothing of 

“ Ireland is one thing, and Scotland another,” said the 
factor. “ We are a law-abiding people. ISTo man will ever 
be shot down behind a hedge by a Highlander ; so if you 


THE W/ZARjys SON-. 


1 16 

should resolve to turn them out to-morrow, my lord, ye need 
stand in no personal fear.” 

^ Walter put aside this somewhat contemptuous assurance 
with a wave of his hand. 

“ I have been told of a great many things I could do,” he 
said, “ in this last fortnight ; but I never knew before that 
I could turn out a whole village full of people if I chose, and 
make their houses desolate.” 

It was a new view altogether of his new powers. He 
could not help returning in thought to all the prepossessions 
of his former middle-class existence where arbitrary power 
was unknown, and where a mild, general beneficence 
towards “ the poor ” was the rule. He said, half to himself, 
‘‘ What would my mother say ? ” and :ij*i she novelty of the 
idea, half laughed. What a thrill it would send through the 
district visitors, the managers of the soup-kitchen, all the 
charitable people ! There suddenly came up before him a 
recollection of many a conversation he had heard, and taken 
no note of — of consultations how to pay the rent of a poor 
family here and there, how to stop a cruel landlord’s mouth. 
And that he should appear in the character of a cruel land- 
lord ! No doubt it would have been easy to show that the 
circumstances were quite different. But in the meantime 
the son of Mrs. ^lethven could not throw off the traditions 
in which he had been brought up. He contemplated the 
whole matter from a point of view altogether different even 
from that of Mr. Shaw, the factor. Shaw was prepared to 
rove that on the whole the poor crofters were not such 
ad tenants, and that sheep farms and deer forests, though 
more easily dealt with, had some disadvantages too ; for 
there was Paterson of Inverchory that had been nearly 
ruined by a bad lambing season, and had lost the half of his 
flock ;*and as for the shootings, was there not the dreadful 
example before them of the moors at Finlarig, where every- 
thing had been shot down, and the game fairly exterminated 
l)y a set ol fellows that either did not know what they Avere 
^lomg, or else were makmg money of it, and not pleasure. 
Iheyery veins in Shaw’s forehead sAvel led when he spoke 
of this. 

f Avould like to have had the ducking of him,” he cried ; 
a man with a grand name and the soul of a heuAvife, that 

and 1 

AVill 

is to 
tack 

[ hat’s all very true ; but it just shoAvs Ihere are risks to be 
rim in all Avays, and the poor folk at Truach Glas Avould 
ncA^er lead you into losses like that.” 

Waiter, hoAvever, did not pay mucb attention even to this 


T, £ 11 lie iiau uunc ii vviuii a oroom, 
all tor the Londoii market ; grant me patience ! You 
say, added ShaAV, that the thing to do at Inverchory 
get a man with more capital noAv that John Paterson’s 
IS done ; and that tbere^s fpw ft-nnrfQiiicin uita SiU* 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


117 


view. His mind had not room at the moment for Paterson 
of Inverchory, who was behind with the rent, or Sir John 
who had devastated the moors. He did not ^et beyond the 
primitive natural horror of what seemed to him an outrage 
of all natural laws and kindness. He had not been a land- 
owner long enough to feel the sacred right of property. He 
turn the cottagers out of their poor little homes for the sake 
of a few pounds more or less of which he stood in no need ? 
The very arguments against taking this step made him 
angry. Could anybody suppose he could do it ? he, Walter 
Methven ! As for the Erracleen business, and all this new 
affair altogether— good heavens, if anybody thought he 
would purchase it by that \ In short, the young man, who 
was not born a grand seimeur, boiled up in righteous wrath, 
and felt it high scorn and shame that it could be supposed of 
him that he was capable, being rich, of oppressing the poor— 
which was the way in which he put it, in his limited middle- 
class conditions of thought. 

Mr. Shaw was hali-gratified half-annoyed by the in- 
tervieAv. He said to the minister with whom he stopped to 
dine, and who was naturally much interested about the new 
yomig man, that assuredly the young fellow had a great deal 
of good in him, but he was a trifle narrow in his Avay of 
looking at a question, which is probably just his English 
breeding,” the factor said. ‘‘ I would have put the Crofter 
question before him in all its bearings ; but he was just out 
of himself at the idea of eviction— like viiat happened in 
Ireland, he said. 1 could not get him to go into the phil- 
osophy of it. He just would not hear a word. Nothing of 
the kind had ever come his way before, oue could see, and 
he was just horrified at the thought.” 

. “ I don’t call that leemited, 1 call it Christian,” the 
minister said, “ and I am not surprised he should have a 
horror of it. I will go and see him in the morning, if you 
think it will be well taken, foi* I’m with liim in that, heart 


and soul.” 

Yes, yes, that’s all in your way,;’ said Mr. Shaw ; “ but 
I am surprised at it in a young man. There is a kind of 
innocence about it. But I would not wonder after a little if 
he should change his mind, as others have done.” 

“ Do you form any theory in your OAvn thoughts, Shaw,” 
said the minister, “ as to what it is that makes them so apt 

to change ? ” . ^ . 1 • i 1 1 

“ Not I,” cried the factor, with a shrug of his shoulders ; 
and then he added hurriedly, “ you’ve given me a capital 
dinner, and that whisky is just excellent: but I think 1 
must be going my ways, lV>r already it s later than 1 
thought.” 

Mr. Cameron, who was minister of the parish, was, like 
Walter, a stranger to the district and its ways. He was a 


THE WIZARD'S SOX, 


1 18 

great antiquary and full of curiosity about all the relics of 
the past, and he had an enlightened interest in its supersti- 
tions too. But Shaw was a Loch Houran man. He had a 
reverence for the traditions which of course he vowed he 
did not believe, and though he was very ready to make this 
statement in his own person he did not like to hear outsiders, 
as he called the rest of the world, discussing them disre- 
spectfully? So he desired his dog-cart to be “ brought round,” 
and drove home in the clear, cold night, warm at his heart, 
.good man, because of the good news lor the Crofters, but 
a little dissatisfied in his mind that the new lord should be 
doing this simply as a matter of sentiment, and not from a 
reasonable view of the situation. “ Provided even that he 
keeps of that mind,” the factor said to himself. 

Walter subsided out of his just indignation when the 
business part of the interview ended, and he came out to the 
open air to see Mr. Shaw away. 

“ This must all be put in order,” he said, as he accom- 
panied his visitor to the boat. 

Shaw looked at him with a little curiosity mingled with 
a slight air of alarm. 

“ Auchnasheen being so near,” he said, “ which is a' verv 
comfortable place, there has never been much notice taken 
of the old castle.” 

“ But I mean to take a great deal of notice of it,” the 
young man said with a laugh. “ I shall have some of the 
antiquaries down and clear out all the old places.”' 

His laugh seemed to himself to rouse the echoes, but it 
called forth no responsive sound from his companion, and he 
caught a glimpse of old Macalistef in the distance shaking 
his old head. This amused yet slightly irritated Walter, in 
the sense of power which alternated with a sense of novelty 
and unreahty in his mind. 

“ So you object to that ? ” he said to the old man. “ You 
don’t like your i>rivileges invaded ? ” 

“ It’s no that,” said Macalister; ‘Mait ye’ll never do it. 
I’ve a lang, lang acquaintance with the place, and I’ve wit- 
nessed many a revolution, if I may say sae. One v/as to puli 
down the auld wa’s altogether ; another was to clean it a’ 
out like you. But it’s never been done. And it’ll never be 
done. I’m just as sure o’ that as your young lordship is that 
you have a the power in your hands.’’ 

Walter turned away with a little disdain in his laugh. 
It was not worth while arguing out the matter with Mac- 
alister. Who should prevent him from doing what he liked 
with his old house? He could but refiect imon the curious 
contradictions with which he was beset. Ha was supposed 
to be quite capable of turning a w^hole village out of 
their homes, aud making them homeless and destitute ; but 
he was not supposed capable of clearing out the blocked-up 




77/-/^ If VZ/iA'P'S sr.\: 

l^nsisagc and rooms of an old ruin 1 lie sniiled a. Iciiid 
of scornful indignation as he went up to iiis sitting-rooiri. 
By this time the afternoon had lost all light and color. It was 
n(;t dark, Imt neither was it day. A graveness had come into 
tl;e atmosphere: the shadows were hlack, and had lost all 
transparency. The two window^s made two bars of a more 
distinct grayness in the room, with a deep line of shade in 
the centre between, which -was colored, but scarcely lighted 
n]\ by the fii*e. He cordd not but think with a sense of re- 
lict that the three days which were all he believed that were 
necessary for his stay at Kinloch Houran were half over at 
h‘aso. Another night and he would he free to go. He did 
not mean to go any further than to Auchnasheen, which was 
exactly opposite to the island ; and then, with a smile cree- r- 
ing al)out the corners of his mouth, he said to himself, that 
lie could very well amuse himself for a few days, what w^ith 
the shooting and what with 

And it w^ould be comfortable to get out of this place, 
luu’e the air, he could not tell why, seemed always insulli- 
(‘ient. The -wainscot, the dark hangings, the nea,vy old 
walls, seemed to absorb the atmosphere. He threw up the 
vund(nv to get a little air, but somehow the projecting 
masonry of the old wall outside seemed to intercept it. Ho 
felt an oppression in his breast, a desire to draAV long breaths, 
to get more air into his lungs. It was the same sensation 
Avhicli he had felt last night, and he did not contemplate 
with any pleasure the idea of another long evening alone in 
so strange an atmosphere. However, he must make tlie 
best of it. He went to the bookshelf and got down again his 
'Frois Monsquetaircs. When the candles were lighted, he 
would write a dutiful long letter to his mother, and tell her 
all that had been going on about him, especially that bar- 
barous suggestion about the cottagers. 

“ Fanev me in the character of a rapacious landlord, turn- 
ing a whole commmiity out of doors !^’ he said to himself, 
concocting the imaginary letter, and laughing aloud Avith a- 
thrill of indignation. 

'N'ext moment he started violently, and turned round 
Avith a AA'ild rush of blood to his head, and that sort of rally- 
ing and huddling together of all the forces of his mind AAdiich 
one feels in a sudden catastrophe. It Avas, however, no loud 
alarm that had sounded. It Avas the clear and distinct vi- 
bration of a voice close to him, replying calmly to Ins 
thought. 

Is there anything special in you to disqualify you for 
doing a disagreeable duty?” some one said. 

alter had started hack at the first sound, his heart giv- 
ing a hound in him of surprise—perhaps of terror. He had 
meant to take that great chair by the fire as soon as he had 
taken his book froni 1 lie shelf, so that it mi '1 (he said to 


120 ' 


THE WrZAEHS SON. 


himself in instantaneous self-ar^^uiiient) have heeli vacant 
th(3n. It was not vacant now. A ^entleinaii sat there, with 
his face half turned towards the light looking towards the 
^'onug man ; his attitude was perfectly easy, his \^ice a n ell- 
bred and cultivated voice. There seemed neither hurry nor 
excitement about him. He had not the air of a person new- 
ly entered, but rather of one who had been seated there for 
some time at his leisure, observing what was going on. He 
lifted his hand with a sort of deprecating yet commanding 
gesture. 

“ There is no occasion,” he said, in his in ('asu red voice, 
“for alarm. 1 have no intention of liarming you, or any one. 
Indeed I am not aware that I have any power of haim.” 

iST'ver in his life before had Walter’s soul been sAvept by 
such violent sensations. He had an impulse of flight and of 
deadly overAvhelming terror, and then of sickeninjj shame at 
his oAvn panic. Why should he be afraid ? He felt dimly 
that this moment was the crisis of his life, and that if he fled 
or retreated he was lost. He stood his ground, grasping the 
back of a chair to sunprt himself. 

“ Who are you ? ” he said. 

“That is a searching question,” said the stranger, Avith a 
smile.* “ We AAoll come to it by and by. I should like to 
knoAv in the first i)lace Avhat there is in you AA^hich makes it 
im])ossible to act AAoth justice in certain circumstances?” 

The air of absolute and calm superiority Avith which he 
put this question Avas beyond description. 

Walter felt like a criminal at the bar. 

“ Who are you? ” he repeated hoarsely. He stood Avith a 
curious sense of being supported only by the grasp which he 
had taken of the back of the* chiwr, feeling himself a mere 
bundle of impulses and sensations, -hardly able to keep 
himself from flight, hardly able to keep himself from 
falling doAvn at the feet of his intruder, but^ holding to 
a sort of self-restraint by his grasp upon' the chair. 
Xatiirally, hoAA^ever, his neives steadied as the moments 
passed. The first extreme shock of surprise Avore aAvay. 
There Avas nothing to alarm the most timid in the counte- 
nance upon AAdiich he gazed. It Avas that of a handsome man 
Avho had scarcely turned middle age, Avith gray lait not 
AAdiite hair yovy thin on the forehead and temples, a high 
delicate aquiliiie nose, and colorless complexion. His mouth 
closed someAvhat sternly, but had a faint melting of a smile 
about it, by movements Avhich Avere ingratiating and almost 
SAA'eet. The chief thing remarkable about the stranger, Iioaa - 
ever, besides the extraordinary suddenness of his appear- 
ance, AA^as the perfect composure AAuth AAdiich he sat, like a 
man Avho not only Avas the most important person AAdier- 
ever he Avent, but also complete master of the ])resent scene. 
It AA^as the young man Avho Avas the intruder, not he. 


THE WIZARD'S SOiV. 


I2I 


I will tell you presently who I am,” lie said. “ In the 
meantime explain to me wtiy you should be horrified at a 
step which better men than myself take every day. Sit 
down.” The stranger allowed himself to smile with distinct 
intention, and then said in a tone of which it is impossible to 
describe the refined mockery, “ You are afraid?” 

Walter came to himself with another sensible shock : his 
pride, his natural spirit, a certain impulse of scdf-defence 
which never forsakes a man, came to his aid. lie was in 
dined to say “No,” with natural denial of a contemptuous 
accusation ? but i-al lying more and more every moment, 
answered, with something like defiance, “ Yes— or rather I 
am not afraid. I am startled. 1 want to know how you 
come here, and who you are who (piestion me — in my own 
house.” 

“You are very sure that it is your own house? You 
mean to have it restored and made into a piece of sham an • 
ticpiity— if nothing prevents ? ” 

“ What can prevent? if I say it is to be done,” cried the 
young man. llis blood seemed to curdle in his veins when he 
heard the low laugli with which alone the stranger replied. 

“May I ask you— to withdraw or to tell me who you are?” 
he said. His voice trembled in spite of himself. The words 
left his lips cpiite sturdily but quivered when they got into 
the air, or so in the fantastic hurry of his mind he thought. 

“ If I refuse, what then ? ’ the stranger said. 

These two individuals confronted each other, defying each 
other,oiie angry and nervous, the other perfectly calm. In 
such circumstances only one result is sure : that he who re- 
tains his self-possession Avill have the mastery. Walter felt 
himself completely baffled. He could not turn out with vio- 
lence a dignified and serious visitor, who assumed indeed 
an intolerable superiority, and had come in without asking 
leave, but yet was evidently a person of importance — if noth- 
ing more. He stared at him for a moment, gradually be- 
coming familiarized Avith the circumstances. 'You are 
master of the situation,” he said Avith a hai*d-drawn breath. 
“ I suppose I can do nothing but submit. But if politeness 
on my part requires this of me, it requires on yours some in- 
formation. Y our name , your object ? ” 

They looked at each other once more for a moment. 

“ When you put it in that way, I liaA^e nothing to say,' 
said the stranger, Avith great courtesy ; “but to acknoAvledge 
your right to require ” . , . 

At tnat moment the door opened hurriedly, and Syming- 
ton came in. 

“Your lordship will be wanting something?'^ he said. 
“ 1 heard your voice. Was it to light the lights? or Avould 
it be for tea, or “ 

He gave a sort of scared glance round the room, and 


122 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


clung to the handle of the door^ hut his eyes did not seem to 
distinguish the new-comer in the falling twilight. 

“I did not call ; but you may light the candles,” Walter 
said, feeling his own excitement, which had been subsiding, 
spring up again, in his curiosity to see what Symington s 
sensations would, be. 

The old man came in reluctantly. He muttered some- 
thing uneasily in his throat. I would have brought a liglit 
if I had known. You might have cried down the stairs, it’s 
just out of all order to light the lights this gate,” he mut- 
tered. But he did not disobey. He went round the room 
lighting one after another of the twinkling candles in the 
sconces. Now and then he gave a scared and tremulous 
look about him • but he took no further notice. The stranger 
sat quite composedly, looking on with a smile while this 
process was gone through. Then Symington came up to the 
. table in front of which AYalter still stood. 

'' Take a seat, my lord, take a seat,” he said. “ It’s no 
camiy to see you standing just glowering frae 3^0, as we say 
in the country. You look just as if you -were seeing some- 
thing. And take you your French fallow that you were 
reading last night. It’s better when you’re by yourself in 
an auld house like this, that has an ill-name, always to do 
something to occupy your thoughts. 

Walter looked at the strange r, who made a little gesture of 
intelligence with a nod and smile ; and old Symington fol- 
lowed the look, still with that scared expression on nis face. 

“Your lordship looks for all the world as if you were 
staring at somethmg in that big chair ; you must be careful 
to take no fancies in your head,” the old servant said. He 
gave a little nervous laugh, and retreated somewhat quickly 
towards the door. “ And talk no more to yourself ; it’s an 
ill habit,” he added, with one more troubled glance round 
him as he closed the door. 


CHAPTER XHI. 

‘‘And so you have made acquaintance with the young 
lord— tell us what kind of a person he is. Mrs. Forrester— tell 
us what you think of him, Oona.” 

This was the unanimous voice which rose from the party 
assembled on the second day after Walter’s visit in the 
drawing-room in the Isle. 

It was by no means out of the world, though to aU ap- 
pearances so far removed from its commotions. A low cot- 
^ge-mansion on the crest of a rock, in the middle of Loch 
Houran, six miles from the railway at the nearest spot on 
which you could land, and with a ihile or so of water, r)ften 


THE ]V/ZARD\S SOH. 


1-^3 

rough, between you and the ^)0.st-oiiice, is it possible to im- 
agine a more complete seclusion ? and yet it was not a se- 
clusion at all. Oona cared very little lor the rougimess of 
the water between the Isle and the post-office, and Hamish 
nothing at all, and new's came as constantly and as regularly 
to the two ladies'on their island as to any newspaper-news 
from all quarters of the world. The mail days were almost 
as important to them— in one way far more important than 
to any merchant in his office. Budgets came and went every 
week, and both Oona and her mother would be busy till late 
at night, the little gleam of their lighted windows shining- 
over the dark loch, that no one mignt miss his or her weekly 
letter. These letters went up into the hill countries in 
India, far away to the borders of Cashmere, round the world 
to Australia, dropt midway into the coffee groves of Ceylon. 
When one of the boys was quartered in Canada, to which 
there is a mail three times a w'eek, that looked like next 
parish, and they thought nothing of it. Neither need it be 
supposed that this was the only enlivenment of their lives. 
The loch, though to the tourist it looks silent enough^ was in 
fact fringed by a number of houses in which the liveliest 
existence was going ,on. The big new house at the point, 
wdiich had been built by a wealthy man of Glasgow^ with 
every possible splendor, threw the homelier houses of the 
native gentry a little uato the shade ; but nobody bore him 
any malice, his neighbors being all so well aware that tbeii- 
own “position” was known and unassailable, that his finery 
and his costliness gave them no pang. They were all a little 
particular about their “ position : ” but then nobody on the 
loch could make any mistake about that, or for a moment 
imagine that Mr. Williamson from Glasgow could rival tlie 
Scotts of Inverhouran, the Campbells of Ellermore, of Glen- 
truan, and half a dozen names besides, or the Forresters of 
Eaglescairn, or the oid Montroses, who. m fact, Avere a 
branch of the Macnabs, and held their house on the Isle from 
that important- but extinct clan. This w'as so clearly under- 
stood that there Avas not an exception made to the Wiilinno 
sons, AV'ho knew their place, and AA’ere A^ery nice, and made a 
joke of their money, Avhich Avas their social standing ground. 
They had called their house, which was as big as a castle, m 
the most unobtrusive manner Birkenbraes, thus proving at 
once that they AA^ere neAv people and LoAvlanders : so much 
better taste, everybody said, than any pretence at Highlanci 
importance or name. Wnd this being once acknowledged 
the gentry of the loch adopted the Williamsons cordially, 
and there was not a Avord to be said. But all the Campoells 
about, and those excellent Williamsons, and a few families 
who Avere not Campbells, yet belonged to Loch Hourari, 
kept a good deal of life “ on the loch,” AA'hich Avas a phrase 
that meant in the distnct generally. And the Isle Avas not 


124 


THE WIZARDS SOH 


a dull habitation, wliatever a stranger might think. There 
was seldom a day when a boat or two was not to be seen, 
sometimes for hours together, drawn up upon the rocky 
beach. And the number of persons entertained by Mrs. 
Forrester at the early dinner which was politely called 
luncheon would have appeared quite out of pro))ortion with 
her means by any one unacquainted with Highland waj^s. 
There was tihut from the loch, which cost nothing except 
TIamish’s time, a commodity not too valuable, and there was 
grouse during the season, ’which cost still less, seeing it 
came from all the sportsmen about. And the scones, of 
every variety known in Scotland, which is a wide Avord, 
Avere home-made. So that hospitality reigned, and yet Mrs. 
Forrester, wlio Avas a skilled liousekeeper, and Mysie, to 
Avliom the family resources Avere as her OAvn, and its credit 
still more precious than her own, managed somehoAv to 
make ends meet. 

On this particular afternoon the draA\ ing-room Avith all 
its slim sofas, and old-fashioned curiosities Avas full of 
Campbells, for young Colin of Ellermore Avas at home for 
his holiday, and it Avas a matter of course that his sisters 
and Tom, the youngest, avIio Avas at home reading (very 
little) for his coming examination, should l)ring' him to the 
Isle. Colin Avas rather a finer gentleman than flourished by 
nature upon the loch. He had little company Avays Avhich 
made his people laugh ^ but Avhen he had been long enough 
at home to forget these he Avas A^ery nice they all said. He 
was in London, and though in trade, in “ tea,” Avhich is 
rather aristocratic, he Avas in society too. 

“ What kind f)f person is he, Mrs. Forrester . Tell us 
Avhat you think of him, Oona,” Avas Avhat this youthful band 
said. 

“ AVell, my dears,” said Mrs. Forrester, “he is just a very 
nice young man. I don’t knoAv Iioav I can describe him bet- 
ler, for young men nowadays are very like one another. 
They all wear the same clothes — not but Avhat,” she added 
graciously, “ I Avould knoAv Colin anyAAdiere for a London 
gentleman Avith his things all so Avell made; but Lord Erra- 
deen Avas just in a kind of tAveed suit, and nothing remark- 
able. And his hands in his pockets, like all of ye. But he 
ansAvered very nicely Avhen I spoke to him, and said he Avas 
more used to Walter Methven than to any other name, and 
that to be neighborlike Avould just be his pleasure. It is 
not possible to l^e more pleasant and Avell-spoken than the 
young man was.” 

“Oh, but I AA^ant a little more,” cried Marjorie Campbell; 
“ that tells nothing ; is he fair, or is he dark ? is he tall or is 
he little— is he ” ^ 

“ He couldn’t be little,” cried .Tanet, indignantly, “or he 
would not be a hero : and I’ve made up my mind he’s to be 


THE ]VT7.ARn\^ SOA^. 




a hero. He’ll have to do something- grand, ])ut i don't know 
what: and to spoil it all with making him small ” 

“ Heroes are all short,” said Tom, “ and all the grea t 
generals. You don’t want weed}^ long-legged fellows like 
Colin and t lie rest of them. But you know they all run to 
legs in our family, all but me.” 

‘‘All this is irrelevant,” said Colin with a smile which 
was somewhat superior, “ and you prevent Mrs. Forrester 
from giving ns the masterly characterization which I know 
is on her lips,” 

“ You are iust a flatterer,” said that simple lady, shaking 
her finger at him; “there was no character coming from my 
lips. He is just a fine simple-hearted young man. It appears 
he never knew what he was heir to, and has no understand- 
ing even now, so far as I could learn, about the Erradeens. 
He told me he had been a thoughtless lad, and, as well as 1 
could judge, just a handful to his poor mother ; but that all 
that was over and gone.” 

“ Y on are going too far, mamma ” said Oona . “ He said he 
had Hoafed.’ Loafing means no harm, does it, Colin? It 
means mere idleness, and no more.” 

“ Why should you think I am an authority on the sub- 
ject ? ” said Colin." “ I never loaf : I go to the city every day. 
When I come back I have to keep up society, so far as I can, 
and hunt about for invitations, otherwise I should never be 
asked out. That is not loafing, it is hard work.” 

“Ask me, Oona,” said young Tom ; “ I can tell you. It 
is the nicest thing in the world. It means just doing nothing 
you are wanted to do, taking your own way, watcliing 
nature, don’t you know, and studying men, and tliat sort of 
things, which all the literary people say is better than cram- 
ming. But only it does not pay in an epnn.’’ 

“ Oh, hold your tongue. Tommy,” cried his sister. A ou 
will fail again, you know you null and^ papa will be in de- 
spair. For you are not like Colin, who is clever ; you are good 
foriiolhing but soldiering, and next year you will be too 

“It’s a shame,” cried Tom hotly, “to make a. fellow, s 
commission depend upon his spelling. What has spelling 
todowuth it!’^ But I am going into militia, and then I 
shall be all right.” , ^ ^ 

“ And did Erradeen,” said Colin to Mrs. h orrester, “ let 
out any of the secrets of his prison house ? ” 

“ Bless me, he looked just as cheerful as yourself or even 
as Tom. There was nothing miserable about him, Mrs. 
Forrester replied. “He had been all the morning enjoying 
himself on the loch, and he came up and ate his lunch just 
very hearty, and as happy as possible, with Opnaand me He 
was just very like my own Jamie or Bob ; indeed i tnink 
there’s something in his complexion and his way of holding 


126 


THR J VrZARirS SOK. 


himself that is very like llonakl ; and took my opinion about 
the old castle, and what was the meaning of the light on the 
tower. Indeed,” added Mrs. Forrester with a laugh, “ I don’t 
know if it is anything in me that draws people to tell 
their stories, but it is a very general thing, especially for 
young persons, to ask for my advice.” 

“Because you’re so kind/’ said Janet Campbell, who was 
romantic and admired the old beauty. 

“ Because you're so clever said Marjorie, who had a 
turn for satire. 

Oonaj whose ear was very quick for any supposed or pos- 
sible ridicule, such as her mother s little foibles occasionally, 
laid her open to, turned qiiickiV round from Tom, leaving 
him speaking, and with a little heightened color interposed. 

“We are opposite to the castle night and day,” she said. 
“We cannot go out to the door or gather a flower without 
seeing it ; and at night there it is in the moonlight. So nat- 
urally we are better acquainted ■udth what happens than 
anybody else can be.” 

“And do you really, really believe in the light?” said 
Marjorie. 

Ellermore lay quite at the other end of the great loch, 
among another range of hills, and was shut out from personal 
acquaintance with the phenomena of Kinloch Houran. 
Colin gave a slight laugh, the faintest possible indication of 
incred jiity, to repeat with an increase of force the doubt in 
his sister’s tone. Oona was not without a healthful little 
temper, which showed in tlie flash of her eye and the redden- 
ing of her cheek. But she answered very steadily, with 
much suppressed feeling in her tone 

“ What do you call believing ?” she said. “ You believe 
in things you cannot see ? then I don’t believe in the Kinloch 
Houran light. Because I see it, and have seen it a hundred 
times as clear as day.” 

At this there was a little pause among the partv of visit- 
ors, that pause of half-amused superiority and scepticism, 
with which all believers in the mysterious are acquainted. 
And then Marjorie, who was the boldest, replied 

“ Papa says it is a sort of phosphorescence, which is quite 
explainable; and that where there is so much decaying mat- 
ter, and so much damp, and so much — 

“ Faith, perhaps,” said Colin, with that slight laugh ; “ but 
we are outsiders, and we have no right to interfere with the 
doctrines of the loch. Oona, gave us that credit that we are 
outside the circle, and you must not send us to the stake.” 

“Oln my dears,” said Mrs. Forrester, “ and that is quite 
true. I have heard very clever men say that there was noth- 
ing made so much difference in what you believe as just the 
place you were bom in, and that people would go to the 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


127 


stake, as you say, on one side 01 the border for a thing they 
just laughed at on the other.” 

Tliis, which was a very profound deliverance for Mrs. 
Forrester, she carried off at tlie end with a pretty profession 
of her own disabilities. 

“ I never trust to my own judgment,” she said. “ But 
Oona is just very decided on the subject and so are all our 
l)eople on the isle, and I never put myself forward one way 
or another. Are you sure you will not take a cup of tea before 
you go ? a cup of tea is never out of place. It is true the day 
Is very short, and Colin, after liis town life, will be out of the 
way of rowing. You are just going across by the ferry, 
and then driving r \Y ell, that is perhaps the best way. And 
in that case there is plenty of time for a cup of tea. Just 
ring the bell, or perhaps it will be safer, Oona, if you will 
cry upon Mysie and tell her to lose no time. Just the tea. 
and a few of* the cream scones, and a little cake. She need 
not spread the table as there is so little time.” 

The interlude of the tea and the cream scones made it 
late before the visitors got away. Their wagonette was 
visible waiting for them on the road below Auchnasheen, 
and five minutes were enough to get them across, so that 
they dallied over this refreshniQiit with little thought of the 
waning afternoon. Then there was a little bustle to escort 
them down to the beacli, to see them carefully wrapped up, 
to persuade Marjorie that another “ hap ” would be desir- 
able, and Janet that her “ cloud ” should be twisted once 
more about her throat. The sunset was waning when at 
last they were fairly off, and the loch lay m a still, yellow 
radiance, against which every tree and twig, every rock and 
stone, stood out dark in full significance of outline. It was 
cold, and Mrs. Forrester shivered in her furred cloak. 

“ The shore looks so clear that you could touch it,” she 
said ; “ there will be rain to-morrow, Oona.” 

“ What does it matter about to-morrow ?” cried the girl ; 
“ it’s beautiful to-night. Go in, mamma, to the fireside ; but 
J will stay here and see them drive away.” 

The mother consented to this arrangement, which was so 
natural; but a moment afterward came back and called 
from the porch, Avhere she stood sheltered from the keen 
and eager air. 

'‘Oona! Come in, my dear. That Colin one, with his 
London ways, will think you are watching him ” 

There was something sublime in the fling of Oona’s head, 
and the erection of her slim figure, as she rejected the pos- 
sibility. 

“ Watching him ! ” She was too proud even to permit 
herself to resent it. 

‘'Ah! but you never can tell what a silly lad may take 
into his head,’’ said Mrs. Forrester ; and, haying thus cleared 


128 


THE WrZARjyS SOjV. 


her conscience, she went in and took oft' her cloak, and shut 
the drawing-room door, and made herself very comfortable 
in her own cosy chair in the riuldy firelight. She laid her 
head back upon the soft cushions and looked round her with 
a quiet sense of content. Everytliing was so comfortable, so 
pretty and homelike ; and by and by she permitted herself, 
lor ten minutes or so, to fall into a soft oblivion. '' 1 just 
closed my eyes,” was Mrs. Forrester’s little euphuism to 
herself. 

Meanwhile Oona stood and looked at sky and sea and 
shore. The soft plash of tlie oars came through the great 
stillness, and, by and by, there was the sound of the boat 
run up upon the shingle, and the noise of the disembarkation, 
the voices swelling out in louder tones and laughter. As 
they waved their hands in a tinal goodnight to the watcher 
on the isle before they drovp away, the young people, as 
Mrs. P'orrester had said, laughed and assured Colin that it 
was not for them Oona stood out in the evening chill. But, 
as a matter of fact, there was nothing so little in Oona’s 
mind. She was looking round her with that sort of exalta- 
tion whicli great loneliness and stillness and natural beauty 
so naturally give : the water gleaming all round, the sky 
losing its orange glow and melting into soft primrose tints 
the color of the daft'odil. 

“ The holy time is quiet as a nun 
Hreathless with adoration.” 

All the sensations that belong to such a moment are exquis- 
ite ; a visionary elevation above the earth and all things 
earthly, a soft pensiveness, an elation, yet wistful longing, 
of the soul. Before her the old castle of Kinloch llouran 
lay gloomy and dark on the edge of the water. If she 
thought of anything it was of the young neighbor, to whom 
she felt so strangely near in wonder and sympathy. Who 
might be with him at that moment in the ghostly quiets 
what thoughts, what suggestions, were being placed before 
liim?. Oona put her hands together, and breathed into the 
still air a wish of wondering and wistful pity which was 
almost a prayer. And then, rousing herself with a slight 
\shiver and shake, she turned and went in, shutting out 
behind her the lingering glory of the water and sky. 

Mysie was lighting the candles when she went in, and 
Mrs. Forrester had opened her eyes. Two candles on the 
mantelpiece and two on the table weieall the ladies allowed 
themselves, except on great occasions, when the argand 
lamp, which was the pride of the household, was lighted in 
lionor of a visitor. The warmth of this genial interior w as 
very welcome after the cold of the twilight, and O^ua 
brought her Avork to the table/and the book from whicli her 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


129 

mother was in the habit of reading aloud. Mrs. Forrester 
thought she improved her daughter’s mind by these read- 
ings ; but, to tell the truth, Oona’s young soul, with all the 
world and life yet before it, often fled far enough away while 
her mother’s soft voice, with the pretty tricks of elocutiou, 
which ^vere part of her old-fashioned training, went on. 
Never was there a prettier indoor scene. In the midst of 
that great solitude of woods and water, the genial comfort 
of this feminine room, so warm, so softly lighted, so peaceful 
and serene, struck the imagination like a miracle. Such a 
tranquil retirement would have been natural enough safely 
planted amid the safeguards and peaceful surroundings of a 
village : but in being here there was a touch of mcongruity. 
The little play of the mother’s voice as she read with inno- 
cent artifice and the simple vanity which belonged to her, 
the prettv work, of no great use, with which the girl was 
busy, both heightened the sense of absolute trust with which 
they lived in the bosom of nature. A sudden storm, one 
could not but think, might have SAvept them away into the 
dark gleaming water that hemmed them round. They were 
not afraid : they Avere as safe as in a citadel. They Avere 
like the birds in their nests ; Avarm and soft, though in the 
heart of Loch Houran. Mrs. Forrester was reading a his- 
torical novel, one of the kind Avhich she thought so good for 
improving Oona’s mind ; amusing, yet instructing her. But 
Oona’s mind, refusing to be improved, Avas giving only a 
mechanical attention. It was away making a little pilgrim- 
age of Avonder about the mystic house which was so near 
them, longing to know, and trying to diAune, Avhat was going- 
on there. 

But when the afternoon closes in at four o’clock, and the 
candles are lighted shortly after, the night is long. It seemed 
endless on this occasion, because of the too early tea, AA^hich 
Mrs. Forrester had thought it Avould be “ just a farce ” to 
produce again at six o’clock, their usual hour ; and from 
half-past four till nine, Avhen the small and light repast 
known in the house under the pleasantly indefinite name of 
“ the tray ” made its appearance, is a long time. There had 
lieen tAvo or three interruptions of a little talk, and the book 
had been laid doAAui and resumed again, and Oona’s Avork 
liad dropped tAAm or three times upon her knee, Avhen Mysie, 
coming in, announced that it was just an uncommon fine 
night, though all the signs (including the glass, Avhich, hoAv- 
ever, does not ahvays count in the Avest of Scotland) pointed 
to rain, and that Hamish was going to take advantage of the 
moonlight to do an errand at the village above Auchnasheen. 
Would IMiss Ck)na like to go? It was just aAvfu’ bonny, and 
AAuth plenty of haps she could take no harm, Mysie said. To 
see how the girl sprang from her seat Avas a proof of the 
gentle tedium that had stolen upon her soul. 


130 


rilB WIZARD'S S0D\ 


“ But, my dear, it will be cold, cold. I am afraid of 3 ’ou 
catching cold, Ooiia,” Mrs. Forrester cried. 

“ Oh, motner, no. I never catch cold ; and besides, if I 
did, what would it matter ? Tell him I’m commg, Mj^sie ; 
tell him to wait for me. I’ll put on my thick ulster, or the 
fur cloak, if you like.*’ 

“ Certainly, the fur cloak, Oona. I will not hear of it 
without that! But, rny dear, just think, Hamish will have 
to leave you in the boat while he goes to the village ; an 1 
what would you do, Oona, if there is any one on the road V ” 

“Bo, mamma? Look at them, to see if I knew them. 
AndOf it was a stranger, just sit still and say nothing.” 

“ But, my dear ! It might be somebody that would speak 
to you, and — annoy you, Oona.” 

“ There is no person up the loch or down the loch that 
would dare to do that, mem,” said Mysie, composedly. 

“ How can we tell ? It might be some tourist or gangrel 
bodv.” 

“Annoy said Oona^ as if indeed this suggestion 

was too far-fetched for possibility. “ If anything so ridicu- 
lous happened I would just push out into the loch. Don’t 
you trouble, mother, about me.” 

Mrs. Forrester got up to envelope her child’s throat in 
fold after fold of the fleecy white “ cloud.” She shook her 
head a little, but she was resigned, for such little controver- 
sies occurred almost daily. The evening had changed when 
Oona ran lightly down the bank to the boat in which Ilamish 
was waiting. Everything about was flooded with the keen, 
clear white moonlight, which in its penetrating chilly fash- 
ion was almost more light than day. The loch was shining 
like silver, but with a blackness behind the shining, and all 
the shadows were like midnight profound in inky gloom. 
The boat seemed to hang suspended in the keen atmosphere 
rather than to float, and the silence was shrill, and seemed 
to cut into the soul. It was but a few minutes across the 
cold white glittering strait that lay between the isle and the 
mainland. Hamish jumped out with an exaggerated noise 
upon the slippery shingle, and fastened the boat with a rattle 
of the ring to which it was attached, which woke echoes all 
around both from land and water, everything under the 
mingled influence of winter and night being so still. A 
chance spectator would have thought that the mother liad 
very good cause for her alarm, and that to sit there in the 
rough boat absolutely alone, like the one living atom in a 
Avodd all voiceless and asleep, was not a cheerful amuse- 
ment for a girl. But Oona had neither fear nor sense of 
strangeness in an experience which she had gone through so 
often. She called out lightly to Hamish to make haste, and 
looked after him as he set out on the Avhite road, the pecu- 
liarities of his thick-set figure coming out drolly in the 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


13 1 

curious dab of foreshortened shadow flung upon the road by 
his side. She laughed at this to herself, and the laugh ran 
all about with a wonderful’ cheerful thrill of the silence. 
How still it Aras ! When her laugh ceased, there Aras noth- 
ing but the steps of Haniish in all the Avorld— and by and by 
even the steps ceased, and that stillness Avhich could be felt 
settled doAvn. There AA^as not a breath astir, not enough to 
cause the faintest ripple on the beach. Noaa^ and t&n a 
pebble AA^hich had been pushed out of its place by the man’s 
foot toppled over, and made a sound as if something great 
had fallen. OtherA\dse not a breath Avas stirring ; the shad- 
oAA^s of the fir-trees looked as if they AA^ere gummed upon 
the road. And Oona held her breath ; it seemed almost pro- 
fane to disturb the intense and perfect quiet. She kneAv^ 
every hue of every rock, and the profile of -every tree. And 
presently, Avhich no doubt was partly because of this perfect 
acquaintance, and partly because of some mesmeric con- 
sciousness in the air, such as almost invariably betrays the 
presence of a human being, her eyes fixed upon one spot 
Avhere the rock seemed higher than she had been used to. 
"Was it possible that somebody Avas there ? She changed her 
place to look more closely ; and so fearless was the girl that 
slie had nearly jumped out of the boat to satisfy herself 
Avhether it was a man or a rock. But just when she was about 
making up her mind to do so, the figure moved, and came 
down towards the beach. Oona’s heart gave a jump ; several 
Avell authenticated stories Avhich she nad heard from her 
childhood came into her mind with a rush. She took the 
end of the rope softly in her hand so as to be able to detach 
it in a moment. To row back to the Isle was easy enough. 

“ Is it you, iVliss Forrester ? ” a voice said. 

Oona let go the rope, and her heart beat more calmly. “ I 
might Avith more reason cry out. Is it you. Lord Erradeen ? 
for if you are at the old Castle you are a long way from home, 
and T am quite near.” 

“ I am at Auchnasheen,” he said. A great change had 
come OA’-er his tone ; it Avas very grave ; no longer the airy 
voice of youth Avhich had jested and laughed on the Isle. 
He came down and stood Avith his hand on the bow of the 
boat. He looked very pale, very serious, but that might be 
only the blackness of the shadoAvs and the Avhiteness of the 
light. ^ ^ 

“Did you eA^er see so spiritual a night?” said Oona. 
“ There might be anything abroad ; not fairies Avho belong 
to summer, but serious things.” 

“ Do you believe then in— ghosts ? ” he said. 

“ Ghosts is an injurious phrase. Why should we call the 
i)Oor people so Avho are only— dead ? ” said Oona. “ But that 
IS a false way of s])eaking too, isn’t it? for it is not because 
they are dead, but living, that they come back ” 


132 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


“I am no judge,” he said, with a little shiver. “ I never 
have thought on the subject. 1 suppose superstition Imgers 
longer up among the mountains.” 

“ Superstition !” said Oona, with a laugh. “What ugl}^ 
words you use ! ” 

Once more the laugh seemed to ripple about, and break 
the solemnity of the night. But young Lord Erradeen was 
as solemn as the night, and his comitenance was not touched 
even by a responsive smile. His gravity produced upon tlie 
girl’s mind that feeling of visionary panic and distrust which 
had not been roused oy the external circumstances. She 
felt herself grow solemn too, but struggled against it. 

“ Hamish has gone up with some mysterious communica- 
tion to the game-keeper,^’ she said ; “ and in these long nights 
one is glad of a little change. I came out with him to keep 
myself from going to sleep.” 

Which was not perhaps exactly true , but there had arisen 
a little embarrassment in her mind, and she wanted some- 
thing to say. 

“ And I came out—” he said ; then paused. “ The night 
is not so ghostly as the day,” he added, Iiurriedlj^ ; “ nor dead 
people so alarming as the living. 

“You mean that you disapprove of our superstitions, as 
you call them,” said Oona. “ Most people laugh and believe 
a little ; but I know some are angry and think it wrong.” 

“ I angry ! That was not w'hat I meant. 1 meant 

Tt is a strange question which is living and which is To 

be sure, you are right. Miss Forrester. What is dead cannot 
come in contact with us, only what is living. It is a mjsstery 
altogether.” 

“ You are not a sceptic then ? ” said Oona. “ I am glad of 
that.” 

“ I am not anything. I don’t know how to form an 

opinion. How lovely it is, to be sure,” he burst out all at 
once ; “ especially to have some one to talk to. That is the 
great charm.” 

“If that is all,” said Oona, trying to speak cheerfvdly, 
“ you will soon have dozens of people to talk to, for every- 
body in the county— and that is a wide word— is coming to 
call. They mil arrive in shoals as soon as they know.” 

“ I think I shall go— in a day or two,” he said. 

At this moment the step of Hamish, heard far off through 
the great stillness, mterrupted the conversation. Tt liad 
been as if they two were alone in this silent world ; and the 
far off step brought in a third and disturbed them. They 
were silent, listening as it came nearer and nearer, the sound 
growing with every repetition. When Hamish appeared in 
the broad white band of road coming from between the 
shadows of the trees, the young man dropped his hand from 
the bow of the boat. He had not spoken again, nor did Oona 


THE WIZARD'S SOA\ 


^33 

feel herself disposed to speak. Hamisli quickened his pace 
when he saw another figure on the beach. 

“ Ye’ll no’ have been crying upon me, Miss Oona,”he said, 
with a suspicious look at the stranger. 

“ Oh no, Hamish ! ” cried Oona, cheerfully. “ I have not 
been wearying at all, for this is Lord Erradeen that has been 
so kind as to come and keep me company.” 

“Oh, it ’ll be my Lord Erradeen y ” said Ilamish, with a 
curious look into Walter’s face. 

^ Then there was a repetition of the noises with which the 
still loch rangj the rattle of the iron ring, the grating of the 
bow on the shinsie as she was i)ushed on. Ilamish left no 
time for leave-taMng. There were a few yards of clear water 
between the boat and the beach when Oona waved her hand 
to the still figure left behind. “ My mother will like to see 
you to-morrow,” she cried, with an impulse of sympathy. 
“ Good-night.” 

He took his hat off, and waved his hand in reply, but said 
nothing, and stood motionless till they lost sight of him 
round the corner of the isle. Then Hamish, who had been 
exerting himself more than usual, paused a little. 

“ Miss Oona,” he said, “ yon will maybe be the yoiuig lord, 
but maybe no. I would not be speaking to the first that 
comes upon the loch side.” 

“ Oh, if you are beginning to preach propriety ” the 

girl cried. 

“ It’ll not be propriety, it will just be that they’re a fami- 
ly that is not canny. Who will tell you if it’s one or if it’s 
the other ? Did ye never hear the tale of the leddy that fell 
off the castle wall ? ” 

“ But this is not the castle,” cried Oona, “ and I know him 
very well— and I'm sorry for him Hamish. He looks s(^ 
changed.” 

“ Oh, what would you do being sorry for liim ? He has 
nothing to do with us/’ 

And how strange it was to come in from that brilliant 
whiteness and silence — the ghostly loch, the visionary night 
— into the ruddy room full of firelight and warmth, all shut 
Ti, sheltered, full of companionship. 

“ Come away, dome away to the fire ; you must be nearly 
frozen, Oona, and I fear ye have caught your death of cold, ’ 
her mother said. 

Oona remembered with a pang the solitary figure on the 
water’s edge, and wondered if he were still standing there 
forlorn. A whole chapter of life seemed to have interposed 
between her going and coming, though she had been but halt 
an hour away. 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


CHAPTER XTV. 

Two clays after this night scene there was a gathering 
such as was of weekly occurrence in the, Manse of Loch 
Houran i^arish. The houses were far apart, and those of the 
gentry who were old-fashioned enough to remain for the 
seeond service, were in the habit of spending the short in- 
terval Ijetween in the niinister’s house, where an abundant 
meal, called by his housekeeper a cold collation, was spread 
in the dining-room for whosoever chose to partake. aVs it 
was the fashion in the country to dine early on Sunday, this 
1‘epast was but sparingly partaken of, and inost of the com- 
pany, after the glass of\vine or milk, the sandwich or bis- 
(;uit, which was alLthey cared to take, would sit round the 
tire in the minister's library, or examine his books, or, what 
was still more prized^ talk to him of their own or their neigh- 
bor’s affairs. The minister of Loch Houran was one of those, 
celibates who are always powerful ecclesiastically, though the 
modern mind is so strongly opposed to any artificial manu- 
facture- of them such as that which the Church of Rome in 
her wisdom has thought expedient. We all know the argu- 
ments in favor of a married clergy, but those on the other 
side of the question it is the fashion to ignore. He who has 
kept this natural distinction by fair means, and without 
compulsion, has however an unforced advantage of his own 
which the most Protestant and the most matrimonial of pol- 
emics will scarcely deny. Pie is more safe to confide in, be- 
ing one, not tAVo. He is more detached and individual ; it is 
more natural that all the Avorld about him should have a 
closer claim upon the man Avho has no nearer claims to ri- 
Aval those of his spiritual children. Mr. Cameron was one of 
this natural priesthood. If he had come to his present calm 
l).y reason of passion and disappointment in his yiast, such as 
AA^e obstinately romantically hope to hav^e founded the tran- 
quillity of subdued, sunny and sobei- age, nobody could tell. 
An old minister may perhaps be let off more easily in this 
respect than an old monk ; but he was tlie friend and con- 
soler of everybody ; the depositary of all the secrets of the 
jiarish; the one adviser of Avhose disinterestedness and se- 
crecy every perplexed individual Avas sure. He did all that 
man could do to be absolutely impartial and divide himself, 
as he dhided his provisions, among his guests as their needs 
required. But flesh is weak, and Mr. Cameron could not 
disoAvn one soft place in his heart for Oona P'orrester, of 
Avhich that young person AA^as quite aAvare. Oona Avas his 
pupil and his faAmrite, and he was, if not tier spiritual direc- 
tor, which is a position officially unknoAvn to his church, at 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


^35 

least her confidant in her little difficulties, which comes to 
much the same thing • and this notwithstanding the fact that 
Mrs. J orrester attended the parish church under protest, and 
prided herself on belonging to the Scottish Episcopal com- 
munity, the church of the gentry, though debarred by provi- 
dence from her privileges. Mrs. Forrester at this moment, 
with her feet on the fender, was employed in beAvailing this 
sad circumstance Avith another landed lady in the same po- 
sition ; but Oona Avas standing by the old minister’s side, 
Avith her hand laid lightly within his arm, Avhich A^ as a pret- 
ty Avay she had Avhen she was with her oldest friend. It did 
not interfere Avitli this attitude, that he Avas exchanging A^a- 
rious remarks Avith other people, and scarcely tanking to 
Oona at all. He looked doAvn upon her from time to time 
Avith a sort of proud tenderness, as her grandfather might 
have done. It pleased the old man to leel the girl’s slim 
small fingers upon his arm. And asthereAA^ereno secrets dis- 
(mssed in this Aveekly assembly her pi'esence interrupted 
nothing. She added her word from time to time, or the still 
readier comment of smiles and varying looks that changecl 
like the Highland sky outside, and Avere never for tAvo min- 
utes the same. It Avas not, hoAvever, till Mr. ShaAv, the fac- 
tor, came in, that the easy superficial interest of all the par- 
ish talk quickened into something more eager and Avarm in 
her sympathetic countenance. ShaAv’s ruddy face Avas full 
of care ; this Avas indeed its usual expression, an expres- 
sion all the more marked from the blunt and open 
simplicity of its natural mood to Avhich care seemed alien. 
'I'he puckers about his hazel gray eyes, the lines on his fore- 
liead AAffiich exposure to the air had reddened rather than 
l)roAvned, Avere more than usually evident. Those honest 
eyes seemed to be remonstrating Avith the AAoiid and fate, 
'hhey had an appearance half comic to the spectator, but by 
}io means comic to their OAvn seriousness of grieved interro- 
gation as if asking every one on AAffiom they turned, “ Why 
did you doit?” “Why did you let it be done?” It was 
this look Avhich he fixed upon the minister who indeed Avas 
most innocent of all share in the cause of this trouble. 

“ I told you,” he said, “ the other day, about the good in- 
tentions of’ our young lord. I left various things AAith him 
to 1)6 settled that AA^ould bide no delay— things that had been 
Avaiting for the late Lord Erradeen from day to day. And 
all this putting off has been bad, bad. There’s those poor 
crofters that Avill have to be put out of their bits of places 
to-morrow. I can hold off no longer AAdthout his lordship’s 
Avarrant. And not a AAwd from him— not a word ! ” cried 
the good man, with that appalling look,, to Avhichthe natural 
reply Avas, It is not my fault. But the minister kneAv bet- 
ter, and returned a look of sympathy, shaking his Avhite 
head. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


“ What has become of the, young man? they tell me he 
has left the Castle.” 

“ He is not far off— he is at Aiichnasheen 3 but he is just 
like all the rest, full of goodwill one day, and just inaccessible 
the next— jus tin accessible ! ” repeated the factor. “And what 
am I to do? I am just wild to have advice from somebody. 
What am I to do?” 

“Can you not get at him to speak to him ?” the minister 
asked. 

“ I have written to know if he will see me. I have said I 
Avas waiting an answer, but there’s no answer comes. They 
say he’s on the hill all the' day, though the keepers know 
nothing about his movements, and he does not even carry 
a gun. What am I to do ? He sees nobody ; two or three 
called, but cannot get at him. He’s always out— he’s never 
there. That old Symington goes about wringing his hands. 
What says he ? he says ‘ This is the worst of a’. He’s just 
got it on him ’ ” 

“ What does that mean ? ” 

“Can I tell what that means? According to the old 
wives it is the Aveird of the Methvens ; but you don’t believe 
such rubbish, nor do I. It has, maybe, something to do Avith 
tile drainage, or the Avater, or the sanitary arrangements, 
one way or the other ! ” cried the factor, AAuth a harsh and 
angry laugh. 

Then there Avas a momentary pause, and the hum of the 
other people’s talk came in, filling up Avith easier tones of 
conversation the someAvhat strained feeling of this ; “ He’s a 
good shot and a fine oar, and just a deevil for spunk and 
cmirage ; and yet because he’s a little vague in his speaking ! ” 

‘ but, I say, Ave must put up Avith Avhat AA^e can get, and 
though it s a trial the surplice is not just salvation.” “ And 
it turned out to be measles, and not fever at all, and nothing 
to speak of ; so we just cheated the doctors.” These were 
tlie Jiroken scraps that came in to fill up the pause. 

‘I saw Lord Erradeen the other niglit,” said Oona, AA^hose 
light grasp on the old minister’s arm had been tightening 
ainl slackening all through this dialogue, in the interest she 
telt. both 01 the gentlemen turned to look at her inquiringly 
and the girl blushed — not for any reason, as she explained to 
her sell indignantly after Avards, but because it Avas a foolish 
Avay she had ; but somehoAv the idea suggested to. all their 
niinds AA^as not AAuthout an effect upon the CA^ents 01 her after 
life. 

“ And Avhat did he say to you ? and Avhat is he intending ? 
and Avhy does he shut himself up and let all the business hang 
suspended like yon felloAv Machomet’s coffin ? ” cried the 
factor, Avith a guttural in the prophet’s name Avhich Avas due 
to the energy of his feelings. He turned upon Oona those 
remonstrating eyes of his, as if he had at last come to the 


TkE WIZARD'S S0^\ 


ni 


final cause of all the confusion, and meant to demand of her 
without any quibbling, an answer to the question. Why did 
you do it? on the spot. 

“ Indeed, he said very little to me, Mr. Shaw. He looked 
like a ghost, and he said— he was going away in a day or 
two.” 

Sudden reflection in the midst of what she was saying 
made it apparent to Oona that it was unnecessary to giVe 
all the details of the interview. Mr. Cameron for his part, 
laid his large, soft old hand tenderly upon hers which was 
on his arm, and said, in a voice which always softened when 
he addressed her— 

“ And where would that be, my bonnie Oona, that you 
met with Lord Erradeen ? ” 

“ It was on the beach below Auchnasheen,” said Oona, with 
an almost indignant frankness, holding her head high, but 
feeling to her anger and distress, the blush burn upon her 
cheek. “Hamish had some errand on shore, and I went 
with him in the boat. I was waiting for him, when some 
one came down from the road and spoke to me. I was half- 
frightened, for I did not know any one was there. It was 
Lord Erradeen.” 

“ And what ?— and why ?— and ” 

The factor was too much disturbed to form his questions 
reasonably, even putting aside the evident fact that Oona 
had no answ'er to give him. But at this moment the little 
cracked bell began to sound, which was the warning that 
the hour of afternoon service approached. The ladies rose 
from their seats round the tire, the little knots of men broke 
up. “ Oona, my dear, 'will ye come and tie my bonnet ? I 
never was clever at making a bow,” said Mrs. Forrester ; and 
the minister left his guests to make his preparations for 
church. Mr. Shaw felt himself left in the lurch. He kept 
hovering about Oona with a quick decison in his own mind, 
which was totally unjustifled by any foundation ; he went 
summarily through a whole romance, and came to its con- 
clusion in the most matter-of-fact and expeditious way. “ If 
that comes to pass now ! ” he said to himself. “ no 

Me’ven ; there’s no weird on her ; he can give her the man- 
agement of the estates, and all will go well. She has a head 
upon her shoulders, though she is nothing but a bit girlie— 
and there will be me to make everything plain ! ” Such was 
the brief epitome of the situation that passed in the factor’s 
muid. He was very anxious to get speech of Oona on the 
way to church, and it is to be feared that Mr. Cameron's ex- 
cellent afternoon discourse (which many people said was al- 
ways his best, though as it was listened to but droAVsily the fact 
may be doubted) made little impression upon Shaw, though 
he was a serious man, who could say his say upon religious 
subjects, and was an elder, and had sat in the Assembly in 


THE WIZARD'S SOH. 


138 

his day. He nad his opportunity when the service was over, 
when the boats were being pushed off from the beach, and 
the carriages got under way, for those who had far to go. 
Mrs. Forrester had a great many last words to say before she 
put on her furred mantle and her white cloud, and took her 
place in the boat ; and Mysie, who stood ready with the man- 
tle to place it on her mistress’s shoulders, had also her own 
little talks to carry on at that genial moment when all the 
parish— or all the loch, if you like the expression better- 
stood about exchanging friendly greetings and news from 
outlying places. While all the world was thus engaged, 
Oona fell at last into the hands of the factor, and became his 
prey. 

“ Miss Oona,” he said, “ If ye Avill accord me a moment, I 
would like well, well, to know what’s your opinion about 
Lord Erradeen.” 

“ But I have no opinion ! ” cried Oona, who had been pre- 
pared for the attack. She could not keep herself from blush- 
ing (so ridiculous ! but I will do it, she said to herself, as if 
that “ I ” was an independent person over whom she had no 
control), but otherwise she was on her guard. “ How could 
I have any opinion when I have only seen Lord Erradeen 
twice— thrice ? ” she added with a heightening of the blush, 
jis she remembered the adventure of the coach. 

“ Twice — thrice ; but that gives you facilities — and ladies 
are so quick-Avitted. I’ve seen him but once,” said the factor. 
“ I was much taken Avith him, that is the truth, and Avas so 
rash as to think our troubles were over ; but here has eA^ery- 
thing fallen to confusion in the old Avay. Miss Oona, do you 
use your influence if you should see his lordship again.” 

“ But, Mr. ShaAv, there is no likelihood that I shall 
him again— and I have no influence.” 

“ Oh no, you’ll not tell me that,” said the factor, shaking 
his head, with a troubled smile. “Them that are like you, 
young and bonnie, haA^e ahvays influence, if they like to use 
it. And as for seeing him aj?ain, he Avill never leaA^e the 
place. Miss Oona, without going at least to bid you good- 
by.” 

^ “ Lord Erradeen may come to take lea\"e of my mother,” 
said Oona, AAuth dignit>^ “ It is possible, though he did not 
say so ; but even if he does, Avdiat can I do ? I know nothing 
about his affairs, and I have no right to say anything to hiiu 
—no right, more than any one else AAdio lias met him tliree 
times. ’J 

“ Which is just no person— except yourself, so far as I 
can learn,” the factor said. 

“ After all, Avhen you come to think of it, it is only once I 
have seen him,” said Oona, “ for the night on the loch Avas 
by chance, and the day on tlie coach I did not knoAV him ; so 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


39 


that after all I have only, so to speak, seen him once, and how 
could I venture to speaK to him about business ? On no, that 
is out of the question. Yes, mamma, I am quite ready. Mr. 
81 law wishes, if Lord Erradeen comes to hid us good-by that 
we should tell him ” 

“Yes?” said Mrs. Forrester, briskly, coming forward, 
v'hile Mysie arranged around her her heavy cloak. “ I am 
sure I shall be very glad to give Lord Erradeen any message. 
Ue is a very nice young man, so far as I can judge; peojile 
think him very like my Ronald, Mr. Shaw. Perhaps it has 
not struck you? for likenesses are just one of the things 
that no two people see. But we are very good friends, him 
and me ; he is just a nice simple gentlemanly young man— oh, 
very gentlemanhu He would never go away without sajing 
good-by. And I am sure I shall be delighted to give him 
any message. That will do, Mysie, that will do ; do not suf- 
focate me with that cloak. Dear me, you have scarcely left 
me a corner to breathe out of. But Mr. Shaw, certainly— any 
message ” 

“ 1 am much obliged to you ; but I will no doubt see Lord 
Erradeen myself, and I’ll not trouble a lady about laisiness,” 
said the factor. He cast a look at Oona, in which with more 
reason than usual his eyes said, How could you do it ? .And 
the girl was a little compunctious. She laughed, but she 
felt guilty, as she took her mother’s arm to lead her to the 
boat. Mrs. Forrester had still a dozen things to say, and 
waved lier hands to the departing groups on every side, 
while Shaw, half angry, stood grimly watching the embark- 
ation. 

“ There are the Kilhouran (’ampbells driving away, and 
I have not had a word with them : and there is Old Jess, 
who always expects to be taken notice of : and the Ellermore 
folk, that I had no time to ask about Tom’s examination : 
and Mr. Cameron himself, that I never got a chance of telling, 
how well I liked the sermon. Dear me, Oona, you are always 
in such a hurry! And take care now, take care; one would 
think you took me for your own age. But I am not wanting 
to be hoisted up either, as if T were too old to know how to 
step into a boat. Good-by, Mr. Shaw, good-by,” Mrs. Forres- 
ter added cheerfully, waving her hand as she got herself 
safely established in the bow, and Hamish, not half so 
picturesque as usual in his Sunday clothes, pushed off the 
boat. “Good-by, and I’ll not forget your message.” She 
even kissed her hand, if not to him, to the parish in general, 
in the friendliness of her heart. 

Mr. Shaw had very nearly shaken his clenched fist in 
reply. Old fool, he called her in his heart, and even launched 
an expletive fsilently) at Oona, “the heartless immkey,” who 
had betrayed him to her mother. He went back to the 
manse with Mr. Cameron, when all the little talks and con- 


140 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


saltations were over and everybody gone, and once more 
poured out the story of his perplexities. 

‘‘If I do not hear from himj I’ll have to' proceed to 
extremities to-morrow, and it is like to break my heart,” he 
said. ‘‘ For the poor folk have got into their heads that I 
will stand their friend whatever happens, and they are just 
keeping their minds easy.” 

“But, man, they should pay their rents,” said Mr. 
Cameron, who, when all was said that could be said in his 
favor was not a Loch Houran man. 

“Rents! where would you have them get the siller? 
Their bit harvest has failed, and the cows are dry for want 
of fodder. If they have a penny laid by they must take it to 
live upon. They have enough ado to live, without thinking 
of rents.” 

“ But in that , case, Shaw,” said the minister, gravely — 
“ you must not blame me for saying so, it’s what all the wise 
men say — would they not do better to emigrate, and make a 
new start in a new country, wdiere there’s plenty of room ? ” 

“ Oh, I know that argument very well,’’ said Shaw, with 
a snort of indignation. ‘^I have it all at my finger ends. I’ve 
])reached it many a day. But what does it mean, when all’s 
done ? It means just sheep, or it means deer, and a pickle 
rooflees houses standing here and there, and not a soul in 
the glen. There was a time even when I had just an enthu- 
siasm for it— and I’ve sent away as many as most. But after 
all, they’re harmless, God fearing folk ; the land is the better 
of them, and none the worse. There’s John Patterson has 
had great losses with his sheep, and there’s yon English loon 
tliat had the shooting, and shot every feather on the place : 
both the one and the other will be far more out of his lord- 
ship’s pocket than my poor bit crofters. I laid all that 
before him; and he showed a manful spirit, that I will 
.always say. No, minister, it was not to argue the case from 
its foundations that I came to you. I know very well what 
the economists say^ I think they’re not more than half 
light, though they’re so cocksure. But if you’ll tell me what 
I should do ” 

This, hoAvever, was what Mr. Cameron was not capable 
of. He said, after an interval, “ I will go to-morrow and try 
if I can see him, if you think it would not be ill taken.” 

“ To-morrow is The last day,” said the factor gloomily : 
and after a little while he followed the example of all the 
others, and sent for his dogcart and drove himself away. 
Ibit a more anxious man did not traverse any road in Great 
Britain on that wintry afternoon : and bitter thoughts were 
in his heart of the capricious family, whose interests were in 
his hands, and to whom he was almost too faithful a servant. 

“ Oh, the weird of the Me’vens ! ” said Mr. Shaw to himself, 

“ if they were not so taken up with themselves and took 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


141 


more thought for other folk we would hear little of any 
weirds. I have no time for w’eirds. I have just my work to 
do and I do it. The Lord preserve us from idleness, and 
luxury, and occupation with ourselves!” Here the good 
man in his righteous wrath and trouble and disappointment 
was unjusL as manv a good man has been before. 

When Hamish had pushed off from the beach, and the 
little party were afloat, Oona repented her of that movement 
of mingled offence and espiegleriev^Aiioh had made her trans- 
fer the factor’s appeal from herself to her mother : and 
it was only then that Mrs. Forrester recollected how imper- 
fect the communication was. “ Bless me,” Mrs. Forrester 
said, “ I forgot to ask after all what it was he wanted me to 
say. That was a daft like thing, to charge me with a message 
and never to tell me wliat it was. And how can I tell my 
Lord Erradeen? I suppose you could not put back, Hamisli, 
to inquire ?— but there’s nobody left yonder at the landing 
that I can see, so it would be little use. How could you let 
me do such a silly thing, Oona, my dear? 

“ Most likely, mamma, we shall not see Lord Erradeen, 
and so no harm will be done.” 

“ Xot see Lord Erradeen ! Do you think then, Oona, that 
he has no manners, or that he’s ignorant how to behave ? I 
wonder what has made ye take an ill will at such a nice 
young man. There was nothing in him to justify it, that I 
could see. And to think I should have a message for him 
and not know what it is ! IIow am I give him the message 
when it was never given to me ? I just never heard of such 
a dilemma. Something perhaps of importance, and me 
charged to give it, and not to know what it was 1 ” 

‘‘Maybe, mem,” said Mysie from the other end of the 
boat, with that serene certainty that her mistress’s affairs 
were her own, which distinguishes an old Scotch family re- 
tainer, “ maybe Miss Oona will ken.” 

“ Oh, j^es, I suppose I know,” said Oona reluctantly. It 
is something about the cotters at the Truach-Glas, v/ho will 
be turned out to-morrow unless Lord Erradeen interferes ; 
but why should we be charged with that ? We are very un- 
likely to see Lord Erradeen, and to-morrow is the day.” 

This piece of information caused a great excitement in 
the little party. The cotters to be turned out ! 

“But no, no, that was just to frighten you. He will 
never do it,” said Mrs. Forrester, putting on a smile to 
reassure herself herself after a great flutter and outcry. 
“No, no; it must just have been to give us all a fright. 
John Shaw is a very decent man. I knew his father per- 
fectly well, who was the minister at Rannoch, and a very 
good preacher. No, no, Oona, my dear— he could never do 
it : and yon fine lad that is so like my Ronald (though you 
will not see it) would never do it. You need not look so pale. 


THE WIZARD'S SOH. 


142 


It is just his way of joking with you. Many a man thinks it 
pleasant to tell a story like that to a lady ]ust to hear what 

Stivs ^ 

“ Slp hut it’s ill joking with poor folks’ lives,” cried 
Mysie, craning over Hamish’s shoulder to hear every 

none joking,” said Ilamish, gruffly, between the 
sweep of his oars. 

“ It’s none joking, say ye ? Na, it’s piin earnest, or J m 
sair mistaken,^’ said the woman. hh, Miss Oona, but I 
would gang round the loch on my bare feet, Sabbath thougli 
it be, rather than no give a mess^^e like yon.” 

“ How can we do it ? ” cried Oona ; how are we to see 
‘ Lord Erradeen ? I am sure he will not come to call ; and 
even if he did come to-morrow in the afternoon it would be 


too late.” 1 1 i. 

“ My dear,” said Mrs. Forrester, we will keep a look out 
in the morning. Hamish will just be fishing at the point, 
and hail him as soon as he sees him. For it was in the 
morning he came before.” 

“ Oh, mem ! ” cried Mysie, “ but would you wait for that i 
It’s ill to lippen to a young man’s fancy. He might be late 
of getting up (they’re mostly lazy in the morning), or he 
might be writing liis letters, or he might be seeing to his 
guns, or there’s just a hundred things he might be doing. 
What would ye say if, maybe, ]\Iiss Oona ^vas to Avrite one of 
her bonnie little notties 611 that awful bonnie paper, with 
her name upon’t, and tell him ye wanted to see him at ten 
o’clock or eleven o’clock, or whatever time you please ? ” 

“ Or Ave might go over to-night in the boat,” said Hamish, 
laconically.’* 

Mrs. Forrester was used to take much counsel. She 
turned from one to the other with micertain looks. “ But, 
Oona,” she said, “ you are sa.ying nothing ! and you are gen- 
erally the foremost. If it is not just nonsense and a joke 
of John Shaw’s ” 

“ I think,” said Oona, “ that ]Mr. Shaw Avill surely find 
' some other way ; but it was no joke, mother. Who Avould 
joke on such a subject ? He said if Lord Erradeen called Ave 
were to use our influence.” 

“ That Avould 1 ,” said Mrs. Forrester, “ use my influence. 
I Avould just tell him. You must not do it. Bless me, a young 
man new in the country to take a step like that and put 
every person against him ! No, no, it is not possible ; but a 
lady,” she added, bridling a little Avith her smile of innocent 
Annuity, “ a lady may say anything — she may say things that 
another person cannot. I Av^ould just tell him. You must not 
do it ! and that AA^ould be all that Avould be needed. But 
bless me, Oona, how are we to use our influence unless we 


THE WrZARHS SON, 


143 

can see him ?— and T camiot see how we are to get at 
him.” 

“ Oh, mem ! ” cried Mysie, impeding Hamish’s oars as 
she stretched over his shoulder, ‘^just one of Miss Dona’s 
little notties ! ” 

But this was a step that required much reflection, and at 
which the anxious mother shook her head. 


CHAPTER XV. 

It had rained all night, and the morning was wet and 
cold ; the water dull like lead, the sky a mass of clouds ; all 
the bare branches of the trees dropping limp in the humid 
air. Mrs. Forrester, on further thought, had not permitted 
Dona to write even the smallest of her “ bit notties ” to Lord 
Erradeen ; for, though she lived on an isle in Loch Houran, 
this lady flattered herself that she knew the world. She 
indited a little epistle of her own, in which she begged him 
to come and see lier upon what she might call a matter of 
business — a thing that concerned his own affairs. This was 
carried by Hamish, but it received no reply. Lord Erradeen 
Avas out. Where could he be out on a Sabbath day at niglit, 
in a place Avhere there were no dinner parties, nor any club, 
nor the temptations of a town, but just a lonely comitry 
place ? Nor was there any answer in the morning, which was 
more Avonderful still. It AA^as ill-bred, Mrs. Forrester thought, 
and she Avas more than ever glad that her daughter had not 
been involved in the matter. But Ilamish had information 
Avhich Avas not communicated to the draAving-room, and oA^er 
Avhich Mysie and he laid their heads together in the kitchen. 
The poor young gentleman was off his head altogether, the 
servants said. The door Avas just left open, and he came in, 
nobody kneAv Avhen. He could not bear that anybody should 
say a AAwd to him. There had been thoughts among them 
of sending for his mother, and old Symington shoA\’'ed to 
Hamish a telegram prepared for Mr. ^lilnathort, acquainting 
him Avith the state of affairs, Avhich he had not yet ventured 
to send— “ For he Avill come to himself soon or syne,” the 
old man said : “ it’s just the Aveird of the Me’A''ens that is 
upon him.” Symington Avas indifferent to the fate of the 
poor crofters. He said “ the factor Avill ken Avhat to do.” He 
Avas not a Loch Houran man. ^ 

On the Monday, hoAvever, the feeling of all the little 
nopulation on the isle ran very high. The Avet morning, the 
leaden loch, the loAV-lying clouds oppressed the mental 
atmosphere, and the thought of the poor people turned out 


144 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


of their houses in the rain, increased the misery of the 
situation in a way scarcely to be expected in the west, where 
it is supposed to rain for ever. At eleven o’clock Oona 
appearea in her tliickest ulster and her strongest hoots. 

“ I am going up to see old Jenny,” she said, with a little 
air of determination. 

“ My dear, you will be just wet through ; and are you 
sure your boots are thick enough ? You will come back to 
me with a heavy cold, and then what shall we all do ? But 
take some tea and sugar in your basket, Oona,” said her 
mother. “ She went with the girl to the door in spite of 
these half -objections, which did not mean anything. “ And 
a bottle of my ginger cordial might not be amiss — they all 
like it, poor bodies ! And, Oona, see, my dear, here are two 
pound notes. It’s all I have of change, and it’s more than I 

can afford ; but if it comes to the worst But surely, 

surely John Shaw, that is a very decent man, and comes of 
a good family, will have found, the means to do some- 
thing ! ” 

The kind lady stood at the door indifferent to the wet 
which every breath of air shook from the glistening 
branches. It had ceased to rain, and in the west there was a 
pale clearness, which made the leaden loch more chilly still, 
yet was a sign of amelioration. Mrs. Forrester wrung her 
hands, and cast one look at the glistening Avoods of Auch- 
nasheen, and another at the dark mass, on the edge of the 
Avater, of Kinloch Houran, She did not knoAv whether to 
be angry with Lord Erradeen for being so ill-bred, or to 
compassionate him for the eclipse which he had sustained. 
But, after all, he was a very secondary object in her mind 
in comparison with Oona, Avhose course she watched in the 
boat, draAving a long line across the leaden surface of the 
water. She was just like the dove out of the ark, Mrs. 
Forrester thought. 

The little hamlet of Truach-Glas Avas -at some distance 
from the loch. Oona walked briskly along the coach road 
for two miles or thereabouts, then turned up to the left on a 
road which narrowed as it ascended till it became little 
more than a cart track, Avith a footway at the side. In the 
broader valley below a substantial farmhouse, Avith a feAv 
outlying cottages, AA^as the only point of habitation, and on 
either side of the road a few cultivated fields, chiefly of 
turnips and potatoes, Avere all that broke the stretches of 
pasture, extending to the left as high as grass Avould grow, 
up the dark slopes of the hills. But the smaller glen on the 
right had a more varied and lively appearance, and was 
broken into small fields bearing signs of cultivation tolerably 
high up, some of them still yelloAv with the stubble of the 
late harvest, the poor little crop of oats or barley Avhich 
never hoped to ripen before October, if then. A mountain 


THE WIZARHS SOH. 




stream, which was scarcely a thread of water in the summer, 
now leaped fiercely enough, turbid and swollen, from rock 
to rock in its rapid descent. The houses clustered on a 
little tableland at some height above the road, where a few 
gnarled hawthorns, rowans, and birches were growing. 
They were poor enough to have disgusted any social re- 
former, or political economist ; gray growths of rough 
stones, which might have come together by chance, so little 
shape was there in the bulging walls. Oiily a few of them 
had even the rough chimney at one end wattled with ropes 
of straw, which showed an advanced civilization. The others 
had nothing but the hole in the roof, which is the first and 
homeliest expedient of primitive ventilation. It might have 
been reasonably asked what charm these hovels could have 
to any one to make them worth struggling for. But reason 
is not lord of all. There was no appearance of excitement 
about the place when Oona, walking quickly, and a little 
out of breath, reached the foremost nouses. The men and 
boys were out about their work, up the hill, or down the 
water, in the occupations of the day ; and indeed there were 
but few men, at any time, about the place. Three out of the' 
half dozen house were tenanted by “ widow women,” one 
with boys who cultivated her little holding, one who kept 
going with the assistance of a hired lad, while the third 
lived upon her cow, which the neighbors helped her to take 
care of. The chief house of the community, and the only 
one w'hich bore something of a comfortable aspect, was that 
of Duncan Fraser who had the largest allotment of land, and 
who, though he had fallen back so far with his rent as to put 
himself in the power of the law, was one of the class which 
as peasant proprietors are thought to be the strength of 
France. If the land had been his own he would have found 
existence very possible under the hard and stern conditions 
which were natural to him, and probably would have 
brought up for the Church, Robbie, his eldest boy, who had 
got all the parish school could give him, and was still dream- 
ing, as he cut the peats or hoed the potatoes, of Glasgow 
College and the world. Of the other two houses, one was 
occupied by an old pair whose children were out in the world, 
and who managed, by the contributions of distant sons and 
(iaiighters,^ to pay their rent. The last was in the possession 
of a weirdless ” wight, who loved whisky better than 
home or holding, and whose wife and children toiled 
tln'oiigh as best they could the labor of their few fields. 
There were about twenty children in the six houses, all 
ruddj^, weatherbeaten, flaxen-haired, the girls tied up about 
their shoulders in little tartan shawls, and very bare about 
their legs ; the boys in every kind of quaint garments, little 
bags of trousers, cobbled out of bigger garments by work- 
women more frugal than artistic. The rent had failed, for 


THE WIZARDS SOIST. 


146 

how wa:^ money to be had on these levels ? but the porridge 
had never altogether failed. A few little ones were playing 
about the doors ” in a happy superiority to all prejudices 
on the subject of mud and puddles. One woman was wash- 
ing her clothes at her open door. Old Jeimy, whom Oona 
had come to see, was out upon her doorstep, gazing down 
the glen to watch the footsteps of her precious “coo ^ w'hich 
a lass of ten with streaming hair was leading out to get a 
mouthful of wet grass. Jenny’s mind was always in a flutter 
lest something should happen to the cow. 

“ re would pass her by upon the road. Miss Oona,” the 
old woman said, “ and how would ye think she was looking ? 
To get meat to her, it’s just a’ my thought ; but I canna 
think she will be none the worse for a bit mouthfu’ on the 
hill.” 

“ But, Jenny, have you nothing to think of but the cow ? 
It will not be true then, that the time of gTace is over, and 
that the sheriff’s officers are coming to turn you all out ? ” 

“ The sheriff’s officers ! ” cried Jenny. She took the edge 
of her apron in her hand and drew the hem slowly through 
her fingers, which was a sign of perplexity : but yet she was 
quite composed. “Na, na. Miss Oona, they’ll never turn us 
out. What wad I be thinking about but the coo ? She’s my 
breadwinner and a’ my family. Hoots no, they’ll never turn 
us out.” 

“ But Mr. Shaw was in great trouble yesterday. HC' said 
this Avas the last day ” 

“ I never fash’d my thoom about it,” said Jenny. “ The 
last day ! It’s maybe the last, or the first, I would iieA'-er be 
taking no notice. For the factor, he’s our great friend, and 
he would not be letting them do it. No, no; it Avould but 
be his jokes.” the old woman said. 

Was it his jokes ? This Avas the second time the idea had 
been presented to her ; but Oona remembered the factor’s 
serious face. 

“ You all seem very quiet here,” she said ; “not as if anv 
trouble was coming. But has there not been trouble, Jenny, 
about your rent or something ? ” 

“ Muckle trouble,” said Jenny ; “ they Avere to have taken 
the coo. What would have become of me if they had ta’en 
the coo? Duncan, they have ta’en his, puir lad. To see it 
go down the brae Avas enough to break your heart. But 
John ShaAv he’s a kind man ; he would not be letting them 
meddle Avith us. He just said, ‘ It’s a lone Avoman ; my lord 
can do without it, better than the old Avife can do Avith- 
out it,’ he said. He’s a kind man, and so my bonnie- beast 
was saved. I was wae for Duncan; but stiil, Miss Oona, 
things is no desperate so lang as you keep safe your ain 
coo.” 

“That is true,” said Oona with a little laugh. There 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


147 


must, she thought, be some mistake, or else Mr. Shaw had 
found Lord Erradeen, and without the help of any influence 
had moved him to pity the cotters. Under this consolation 
she got out her tea and sugar, and other trifles which had 
been put into the basket. It was a basket that was well 
known in the neighborhood, and had conveyed many a little 
dainty in time of need. Jenny was grateiul for the little 
packets of tea and sugar which she took more or less as a 
right, but looked with a curious eye at the “ ginger cordial” 
for which Mrs. Forrester was famous. It was not a wicked 
thing like whisky, no, no : but it warmed ye on a cold day. 
Jenny would not have objected to a drop. While she eyed 
it there became audible far off voices .down the glen, and 
sounds as of several people approaching, sounds very unusual 
in this reinote corner of the world. Jenny forgot the ginger 
cordial and Oona ran to the door to see what it was, and the 
^\■oman who had been wasliiiig paused in her work, and old 
Nancy Robertson, she whose rent wa^ paid, and wlio had no 
need to fear any sheriff’s officers, came out to her door. 
Even the childreii stopped in their game. The voices were 
still far off, down upon the road, upon which there was a 
group of men, sc>arcely distmguishable at this distance. 
Simon Fraser’s wife, she who had been washing, called out 
that it was Duncan talking to the factor; but who were 
those other men ? A sense of approaching trouble came 
upon the women. Nelly Fraser wiped the soapsuds from 
her arms, and wrung her hands still fresh from her tul>. 
Slie was always prepared for evil as is natural to a woman 
with a “ weirdless husband. Old Jenny for her part, 
thought at once of the coo. She flew, as well as her old legs 
Avoiild carrv her to the nearest knoll, and shrieked to the 
fair-haired little lass who was slowly following that cherished 
animal to bring Brockie back. “ Bring her back, ye silly 
thing. Will ye no be seeing— but I manna say that, she 
added in an undertone. “ Bring back the coo ! Bring her 
back! Jessie, my lamb, bring back the coo. What with 
old Jenny shrieking, and the voices in the distance, and 
something magnetic and charged with disorder in the an*, 
people began to appear from all the houses. One ot me 
widow’s sons, a red and hairy lad, came running iib m his 
heavy boots from the held where he was working. Duncan 
Frasei’^s daughter set down a be.skel of reat w'hich she was 
currying in, and called her mother to the door, 'bi here s 
mv fa.ither v/ith the factor and twa-three strange men,' s^id 
the girl, ‘‘and oh, what will they be waiding here ? thus 
th(^ women and children looked on with growing terror, 
hel] Jess before the ai)proach of fate, as they might have done 
two centuries before, when the invaders were rapine and 
murder, instead of calm authority and law. 

When Oona made her appearance half an hour before 


140 


THE PVIZAED'S SOjV. 


everything had been unquestioning tranquillity and peace. 
Xow, without a word said, all was alarm. The poor people 
did not know what was going to happen, hut they^ felt that 
something was going to happen. They had been living on a 
volcano, easily, quietly, without thinking much of it. But 
now the fire was about to blaze forth. Through the minds 
of those that were mothers there ran a calculation as swift 
as light. “ What will we do with the bairns ? what will we 
do with Granny ? and the bits of plenishing ? ” they said to 
each other. The younger ones were half pleased with the 
excitementj not knowing what it was. Meantime Duncan 
n,nd Mr. Shaw came together up the road, the poor man ar- 
guing with great animation and earnestness, tlie factor lis- 
tening with a troubled countenance and sometimes shaking 
his head. Behind them followed the servants of the law, 
those uncomfortable officials to whom the odium of their oc- 
cupation clings, though it is no fault of theirs. 

“ No, Mr. Shaw, we daima pay. You know that as well 
as I do; but, oh, sir, give us a little time. Would you turn 
the weans out on the hill and the auld folk ? What would I 
care if it was just me ? But think upon the wake creatures 
— my auld mother that is eighty, and the bairns. If my lord 
wiH':aot let us off there’s some of the other gentry that are 
kind and will lend us a helping hand. Oh, give us time ! 
>17 lord that is young and so well off, he canna surely under- 
stand. What is it to him ? and to us it’s life and death.” 

Duncan, my man,” said the factor, “you are just break- 
ing my hearts I know all that as well asVou ; blit what can 
I do ? It is the last day. and we have to act or we just make 
fools of ourselves. My lord might have stopped it, but he 
has not seen fit. For God’s sake say no more for I camiot do 
it. Ye just break my heart ! ” 

By this time the women were within hearing, and stood 
listening with wistful faces, turning from one to another. 
AYhen he paused they struck in together, moving towards 
him eagerly. 

“ Oh, Mr. Shaw, you’ve always been our friend,” cried 
Duncan’s wife^ “you canna mean that you’ve come to turn 
us out to the hill, with all the little ones and gramiy ? ” 

“ Oh, sir !’^ cried the other, “have pity upon me that has 
nae prop nor help but just a weirdless man.” 

“Me, I have nae man ava, but just the hands to travail 
for my bairns,” said a third. 

And then there came a shriller tone of indignation. “ The 
young lord, he’ll just get a curse— he’ll get no blessing.” 

The factor made a deprecating gesture with his hands. 
“1 can do nothing, I can do nothing,” he said. “Take your 
bairns down the glen to my housekeeper Marg’ret: take 
them down to the town, the rest of ye— they shall not want. 
Whatever I can do. I’ll do. But for God’s sake do not stop 


THE WIZARD'S SOX. 


149 

US with your wailin', for it has to be done ; it is iio fault of 
mine.” 

This appeal touched one of the sufferers at least with a 
inoyenient of fierce irony, Duncan uttered a short, sharp laugh, 
which rung strangely into the air, so full of passion. “ Haud 
your tongues, women,” he cried, “ and no vex Mr, Shaw ; 
you’re hurting his feelings,” with a tone impossible to de- 
scribe, in which wrath and misery, and keen indignation and 
ridicule contended for the mastery. He was the only man 
in the desolate group. He drew a few steps apart and folded 
his arms upon his breast, retiring in that pride of despair 
which a cotter ruined may experience no less than a king- 
vanquished, from further struggle or complaint. The women 
neither understood nor noted the finer meaning in his words. 
They had but one thought, the misery before them. They 
crowded round the factor, all speaking in one breath, gras{)- 
ing his arm to call his attention— almost mobbing liini with 
distracted appeals, with the wild natural eloquence of their 
waving hands and straining eyes. 

IVIean while there were other elements, some comic enough 
in the curious circle round. Old Nancy Robertson had not 
left the doorstep where she stood keenly watching in the 
composure and superiority of one whom nobody could touch, 
who had paid her rent, and was above the world. It was 
scarcely possible not to be a little complacent in the superi- 
ority of her circumstances, or to refrain from criticising the 
unseemly excitement of the others. She had her spectacles 
on her nose, and her head projected, and she thought they 
were all like playactors -with their gesticulations and cries. 
“ I wouldna be skreighin’ like that — no me,” she said. Round 
about the fringe of children gaped' and gazed, some stolid 
with amaze, some pale in a vague sympathetic misery, none 
of them quite without a certain enjoyment of this extraor- 
dinary episode and stimulation of excitement. And old 
Jenny awakened to no alarm about her cottage, still stood 
uponJier knoll, with her whole soul intent upon the fortunes 
of Brockie, who had met the sheriff’s officers in full career. 
The attempts of her little guardian to turn the coav back 
from her whiff of pasture had only succeeded in calling the 
special attention of these invaders. They stopped short, and 
one of them taking a piece of rope from his pocket secured it 
round the neck of the frightened animal, who stood some- 
thing like a woman in a similar case, looking to left and to 
right, not knowing in her confusion which way to bolt, 
though the intention was evident in her terrified eyes. At 
this Jenny ,^ave a shriek of mingled rage and terror, which 
in its superior force and concentrated passion rang through 
all the other sounds, silencing for the moment even the wail- 
ing of the women — and flung herself into the midst of the 
struggle. She was a dry, little, withered old woman, nimble. 


THE WIZARjys SON, 


150 

and light, and ran like a hare or rabbit down the rough road 
without a pause or stumble. 

“ My coo ! ” cried Jenny, “ ye sallna tak’ her \ ye sail tak’ 
my heart’s blood fh*st. My coo ! Miss Oona, Miss Oona, will 
you just be standing by, like nothing at all, and letting them 
tak’ my coo ? G’lvay, ye robbers,” Jenny shrieked, flinging 
one arm around the neck of ' the alarmed brute, while she 
pushed away its captor with the other. Her arm was still 
vigorous, though she was old. The man stumbled and lost 
his hold of the rope ; the cow liberated^ tossed head and tail 
into the air and fliuig off to the hillside like a deer. The 
shock threw Jenny clown and stunned her. This made a 
little diversion in the dismal scene above. 

And now it became evident that whatever was to be done 
must be done, expression being exhausted on the part of the 
victims, who stood about in a blank of overwrougJit feeling- 
awaiting the next move.. The factor made a sign with his 
hand, and sat down upon a ledge of rock ojiposite the cot- 
tages, his shaggy eyebrows curved over his eyes, his hat 
drawn down upon his brows. .A sort of silent shock ran 
through the beholders when the men entered the first cot- 
tage ; and when they came out again carrying a piece of fur- 
niture, there was a cry, half savage in its wild impotence, 
rnfortunately the first thing that came to their hands was 
a large wooden cradle, in which lay a baby tucked up under 
the big patchwork quilt, which bulged out on eveiy side. 
As it was set down upon its large rockers on the uneven 
ground, the little sleeper gave a startled wail and then it 
was that that cry, sharp and keen, dividing the silence like a 
knife, burst from the breasts of the watching people. It w^as 
Nelly Fraser’s baby, who had the “ weirdless” man. She 
stood with her bare arms wrapped in her apron lieside her 
abandoned washing-tub, and gazed as if incapable of move- 
ment, with a face like ashes, at the destruction of her hcm'e. 
But while the mother stood stupefied, a little thing of three 
or four, which had been clinging to her skirts in keen baby 
wonder and attention when she saw the cradle carried 
forth mto the open air immediately took the iilace of guar- 
dian. Such an incident had never happened in all little 
Jeanie’s experience before. She trotted forth abandoning 
all alarm, to the road in which it was set down, and tnrning 
a little smiling face of perfect content to the woild, began 
to rock it softly with little coos of soothing and rills of in- 
fant laughter. The sombic background round, with all its 
human misery, made a dismal foil to this image of innocent 
satisfaction. The factor jumped up and turned his back 
upon the scene altogether, biting his nails and lowering his 
brows in a fury 01 wretchedness. And at last the poc)r 
women began to stir and take whispered counsel with each 


THE WIZARD^ S SON’, 


other. There was no longer room for either hope or en- 
treaty ; the only thing to be thought of now was what to do. 

The next cottage was that of Nancy Robertson, who still 
held her position on her doorstep, watching the proceedings 
with a keen but somewhat complacent curiosity. They gave 
her an intense sense of self-importance and superiority, 
though she was not without feeling. When, however, the 
men who had warmed to their work, and knew no distinc- 
tion between one and another, approached her, a sudden 
panic and fury seized the old woman. She defied them 
shrilly, flying at the throat of the foremost with her old 
hands. The wretchedness of the poor women whose children 
were being thrust out shelterless did not reach the wild 
height of passion of her whose lawful property was threat- 
ened. 

“ Villains!” she shrieked, “will ye break into my hooseV 
What right have ye in myhoose? I’ll brack yoiir banes 
afore you put a fit in my hoose.” 

“Whist, whist, wife” said one of the men; “ let go now 
or I’ll have to hurt ye. You canna stop us. You’ll just do 
harm to yourself.” 

“John ShaWj John Shaw,” shrieked Nancy, “do ye see 
what they’re doing? and me that has paid my rent, no like 
those weirdless fuils. Do ye hear me speak? I’ve paid my 
rent to the last farden. Iwe discharged a’ my debts, as I 
Avuss ithers would discharge their debts to me ” Her voice 
calmed down as the factor turned and made an impatient 
sign to the men. “Ye see,” said Nancy, making a little ad- 
dress to her community, “ what it is to have right on your 
side. They canna meddle with me. My man’s auld, and 1 
have everything to do for mysel’, but they canna lay a hand 
on me.” 

“ Oh, hold your tongue, woman,” cried Duncan Fraser. 
“ If you canna help us, ye can let us be.” 

“An wha says that I canna help ye? lam just saying 
—I pay my debts as I avuss that ithers should pay their 
debts to me ; and that’s Scriptur,” said Nancy; but she add- 
edj “ I never said I would shut my door to a neebor ; ye can 
bring in Granny here ; I’m no just a heart of stane like that 
young lord.” 

The women had not waited to AAdtness Nancy’s difficul- 
ties. Most of them had gone into their houses, to take a 
shawl from a cupboard, a book from the “ draAvers-head.” 
One ortAVo appeared with the family Bible under their arm. 
“The Lord kens where we are to go, but we must go some- 
where,” they said. There Avas a little group about Oona and 
her two pound notes. The moment of excitement Avas over, 
and they had now nothing to do but to meet their fate. The 
factor paced back and forAvard on the path, going out of his 
way to avoid here and there a pile of poor furniture. And 


THE WIZARDK^ SOM 


152 

the work of devastation went on rapidly ; it is so easy,^ alas, 
to dismantle a cottage with it’s hut and ben. Duncan Fraser 
did not move till two or three had been emptied. When 
he went in to bring out his mother, there was a renewed 
sensation among the worn-out people who w'ere scarcely ca- 
pable of any further excitement. Granny was Granny to all 
the glen. She was the only survivor of her generation. 
They had all known her from their earliest days. They 
stood worn and sorrow-stricken, huddled together in a lit- 
tle crowd, waitmg before they took any further steps, till 
Graimy should come. 

But it was not Granny who came first. Some one, a stran- 
ger even to the children, whose attention was so easily attract- 
ed by any novelty, appeared suddenly romid a corner of the 
hill. He paused at the unexpected sight of the little clus- 
ter of habitations : for the country was little known to him ; 
and for a moment appeared as if he would have turned back. 
But the human excitement about this scene caught him in 
spite of himself. He gazed at it for a moment, trying to di- 
vine what was happening, then came on slowly with hesi- 
tating steps. He had been out all the morning, as he had 
been for some days before. His being had sustained a great 
moral shock, and for the moment all liis holds on life seemed 
gone. This was the first thing that had moved him even to 
the faintest curiosity. He came forward slowdv, observed 
by no one. The factor was still standing with nis back to 
the woful scene, gloomily contemplating the distant country, 
while Oona was mingled with the women, joining in their 
consultations, and doing her best to rouse poor Nelly, Avho 
sat by her baby’s cradle like a creature dazed and capable of 
no further thought. There was, therefore, no one to recog- 
nize Lord Erradeen as he came slowly into the midst of this 
tragedy, not knowing what it was. The officials had recov- 
ered their spirits as tney got on with their work. Natural 
pity and sympathetic feeling had yielded to the carelessness 
of habit and common occupation. They had begun to make 
rough jokes with each other, to fling the cotters’ possessions 
carelessly out of the windows, to give each other catches 
with a ^‘Hi! tak’ this,” flinging the things about. Lord 
Erradeen had crossed the little bridge, and was in the 
midst of the action of the painful drama, when they brought 
out from Duncan’s house his old mother’s chair. It was 
cushioned with pillows, one of which tumbled out into the 
mud and was roughly caught up by the rough fellow who 
carried it, and flung at his companion’s head, with a laugh 
and jest. It was he who first caught sight of the stranger, a 
new figure among the disconsolate crowd. He gave a whis- 
tle to his comrade to announce a novelty, and rattled down 
hastily out of his hands the heavy chair'. Walter was wholly 
roused by the strangeness of this pantomine. It brought 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


153 

back something to his mind, though he could scarcely tell 
what. He stepped in front of the man and asked, “What 
does this mean ? ” in a hasty and somewhat imperious tone : 
but his eyes answered his question almost before he had 
asked it. Nelly Fraser with her pile of furniture, her help- 
less group of children, her stupefied air of misery, was full m 

1 piyground, and the ground was strewed with other piles. 
Half of the houses in the hamlet were already gutted. One 
poor woman was lifting her bedding out of the wet, putting 
It up upon chairs ; another stood regarding her helplessly, as 
if \yithout energy to attempt even so small a salvage. 

^ ‘ What IS the meaning of all this ? ” the young man cried 

imperiously again. 

His voice woke something in the deep air of despondency 
and misery which had not been there before. It caught the 
ear of Oona, who pushed the women aside in sudden excite- 
ment. It roused — was it a faint thrill of hope in the general 
despair? Last of all it reached the factor, who, standing 
gloomily apart, had closed himself up m angry wretchedness 
against any appeal. He did not hear this, but somehow felt 
it in the air, and turned round, not knowing what the new 
thing was. When he saw Lord Erradeen, Shaw was seized 
as with a sudden frenzy. He turned round upon him 
sharply, with an air which was almost threatening. 

“ W hat does it mean ? ” he said. “ It means your v/ill and 
pleasure. Lord Erradeen, not mine. God is my witness, no 
will of mine. You brute ! ” cried the factor suddenly, “ what 
are you doing? Stand out of the way, and let the honest 
woman pass. Get out of her way, I tell you, or I’ll send ye 
head foremost down the glen ! ” 

This sudden outcry, which was a relief to the factor’s 
feelings, was addressed not to Walter, but to the man who, 
(,'oming out again Avith a new armful, came rudely in the 
way of the old Granny, to aaLoui all the glen looked up, and 
who was coming out" with a look of bewilderment on her 
aged face, holding by her son’s arm. Granny comprehended 
vaguely, if at all, Avbat was going on. She gave a momentary 
glance of suspicion at the fellow Avho pushed against her, 
then looked out with a faint smile at the tAvo gentlemen 
standing in front of the door. Her startled mind recurred 
to its old instincts with but a faint perception of anything 
iieAv. 

“ Sirs,” she said, in her feeble old voice, “ I am distressed 
I canna ask ye in; but I’m feckless mysel’, being a great age. 
and there’s some flitting going on, and my good-daughter she 
is out of the Avay.” 

“ Do you hear that, my lord ? ” cried Shaw ; “ the old Avife 
is making her excuses for not asking you into a house you 
are turning her out of at the age of eighty-three. Oh, I am 
not minding if 1 give ye offence ! I have had enough of it. 


THE WJZARHS SOH, 


154 

Find another factor. Lord Erradeen. I would rather gather 
stones upon the fields than do agam what I have done this 
(Iciy 

W alter looked about like a man awakened from a dream. 
He said, almost with awe,— 

“ Is this supposed to be done by me V I know nothing of 
it, nor the reason. What is tlie reason ? 1 disown it alto- 
gether as any act of mine.” , , . ^ , 

“ Oh, my lord,” cried Shaw% who wns 111 a state 01 wild 
excitement, “ there is the best of reasons. Rent — your lord- 
ship understands that— a little more money, lest your coffers 
sliould not be full enough. And, as for these poor bodies, 
they have so much to put up with, a little more does not 
matter. They have not a roof to their heads, but that’s 
nothing to your lordship. You can cover the hills with 
sheep, and they can— die— if they like,” cried the factor, 
* himself for all he had suffered. He turned away 


I have done enough ; I 


avenging 

Avith a gesture of despair and fury 
Avash my hands of it,” he cried. 

Walter cast around him a beAAdldered look. To his oavu 
consciousness he Avas a miserable and helpless man ; but all 
the poor people about gazed at him, wistful, deprecating, as 
at a sort of unknoAvn, unfriendly god, Avho had their hA^es 
in his hands. The officers perhaps thought it a good moment 
to shoAv their zeal in the eyes of the young lord. They made 
a plunge into the house once more, and appeared again, one 
carrying Duncan’s bed, a great, slippery, uiiAvieldy sack of 
chaff, another charged Avith the old, tall, eight-day clock, 
Avhich he jerked along as if it had been a man hopping from 
one foot to another. 

“We’ll soon be done, my lord,” the first said in an en- 
couraging tone, “ and then a’ the commotion Avill just die 
aAvay.” 

Lord Erradeen had been lost in a miserable dream. He 
Avoke up now at this keen touch of realitjr, and found himself 
in a position so abhorrent and antagonistic to all his former 
instmcts and traditions, that his very being seemed to stand 
still in the horror of the moment. Then a sudden passionate 
energy filled all his veins. The voice in Avhich he ordered 
the men back rang through the glen. He had flung himself 
u]X)n one of them in half irantic rage, before he Avas aAvare 
Avhat he was doing, knocking doAvn the astounded official, 
Avho got up rubbing his elboAv, and declaring it Avas no fault 
of his ; Avhile Walter glanced at him, not knoAving what he 
did. But after this encounter Avith flesh and iffood T.ord 
Erradeen recovered his reason. He turned round quickly, 
and Avith his OAvn hands carried back Granny’s chair. The 
very Aveight of it, the touch of something to do, brought life 
into his veins. He took the old woman from her son’s arm, 
and led her in reverently, supporting her upon his own : 


THE WIZARiyS SON. 


155 

then going out again without a Avord, addressed himself to 
the manual work of restoration. From the moment of his 
first movement, the Avhole scene changed in the tAvinkling of 
one eye. The despairing apathy of the people gave Avay to a 
tumult of haste and activity. Duncan Fraser was the first to 
move. 

“My lord!” he cried; “if you are my lord,” his stern 
composure yielding to tremulous excitement, “if it’s your 
good Avill and pleasure to let us bide, that’s all we want. 
Take no trouble for us ; take no thought for that.” Walter 
gave him a look, almost without intelligence. He had not a 
Avord to say. He Avas not sufficiently master of himself to 
express the sorrow and anger and humiliation in his 
aAvakened soul ; but he could carry back the poor people’s 
things, which was a language of nature not to be misunder- 
stood. He went on taking no heed of the eager assistance 
offered on all sides. “I’ll do it, my lord. Oh, dinna yon 
trouble. It’s OAver much kindness. Ye’ll fyle your fingers ; 
Joe’ll Avear out your strength. We’ll do it ; AA'e’ll do it,” the 
people cried. 

The cottager’s doors flCAv open as by magic ; they worked 
all together, the Avomen, the children, and Duncan Fraser 
and Lord Erradeen. Even Oona joined, carrying the little 
children back to their homes, picking up here a bird in a 
cage, there a little stunted geranium or musk in a pot. In 
half an hour it seemed, or less, the whole Avas done, and 
when the clouds that had been loA\^ering on the hills and 
darkening the atmosphere broke and began to pour down 
torrents of rain upon the glen, the little community Avas 
housed and comfortable once more. 

While this excitement lasted Walter Avas once more the 
healthful and vigorous young man Avho had travelled AAdth 
Oona on the coach, and laughed with her on the Isle. But 
when the storm Avas over, and they walked together towards 
the loch, she became aware of the difference in him. He Avas 
A^ery serious, pale, almost haggard, noAV that the excitement 
Avas OA^er. His smiling lips smiled no longer, there was in his 
eyes, once so light-hearted and careless, a sort of hunted, 
anxious look. 

“No,” he said, in answer to her questions, “1 have mot 
l)een ill ; I liaVfe had — family matters to occupy me, and of 
this I knCAV nothing. Letters? I liad none, I received 
nothing. I haA^'e been occupied, too much perhaps, Avith — 
family affairs.” 

Upon this no comment could be made, but his changed 
looks made so great a claim upon her sympathy that Oona 
looked at him with eyes that Avere almost tender in their 
l>ity. He turned round suddenly apd met her glance. 

“ You knoAv,” he said, Avith a slight tremble in his voice, 
“ that there are some things — they say in every family — a 


THE WIZARD'S SOU. 


I5<> 

little hard to bear. But I have been too much absorbed—I 
was taken by surprise. It shall happen no more.” He held 
his head high, and looked round him as if to let some one 
else see the assurance he was giving her. “ I promise you.” 
he added, in a tone that rang like a defiance, it shall hap- 
pen no more ! ” Then he added hurriedly, with a slight 
swerve aside, and trembling in his voice, “ Do you think 1 
might come with you? Would Mrs. Forrester have me at 
the Isle?” 


CHAPTER XVI. 

When Walter seated himself beside Oona in the boat, 
and Ilamish pushed off from the beach, there fell upon both 
these young people a sensation of quiet and relief for which 
one of them at least found it very difficult to account. It 
had turned out a very still afternoon. The heavy rains 
Avere over, the clouds broken up and dispersing, with a sort 
of sullen stillness, like a defeated army making off in dull 
haste, yet not Avithout a stand here and there, behind the 
mountains. The lOch was dark and still, all hushed after 
the SAveeping blasts of rain, but black Avith the reflections of 
gloom from the sky. There Avas a sense of safety, of sudden 
(luiet, of escape, in that sensation of pushing on, away from 
all passion and agitation upon this still sea of calm. Why 
Oona, Avho feared no one, Avho had no painful thoughts or 
associations to flee from, should have felt this she could not 
tell. The sense of interest in, and anxiety for, the young 
man by her side was altogether different. That Avas sym- 
pathetic and definable ; but the sensation of relief was some- 
thing more. She looked at him Avith a smile and sigh of 
ease as she gathered the strings of the rudder into her 
hands. 

“ I feel,” she said, “ as if I Avere running away, and had 
got safe out of reach ; though there is nobody pursuing me 
that I knoAV of,” she added, with a faint laugh of satis- 
faction. 

Tlie Avind blew the end of the white wrapi'>er round her 
throat toAvards her companion, and he caught it as she had 
caught the rudder ropes. 

“ It is I that am pursued,” he said, “ and have escaped. 
I liaA^e a feeling that I am safe here. The kind Avater, and 
the daylight, and you— but hoAV should you feel it ? It must 
haA^e gone from my mind to yours.” 

“The water does not look so A^ery kind,” said Oona, 
“ except that it separates us from the annoyances that are on 
land — Avhen there are annoyances.” 

She had never knoAvn' any that Avere more than the 
troubles of a child before. 


THE WIZARD^ S SOiY. 


157 


“ There is this that makes it kind. If you were driven 
beyond bearing, a plunge down there and all w^ould be 
over ” 

“ Lord Erradeen ! ” 

“ Oh, I don’t mean to try. I have no thought of trying ; 
but look how peaceful, how deep, all liquid blackness ! It 
might go downi to the mystic centre of the earth for anything 
one knows.” 

He leant over a little, looking down into those depths pro- 
found which were so still that the boat seemed to cut 


through a surface which had solidity ; and in doing this put 
the boat out of trim, and elicited a growl from Ilamish. 

It seemed to Oona, too, as if there was something seduc- 
tive in that profound liquid depth, concealing all that sought 
refuge there. She put out her hand and grasped his arm in 
the thrill of this thought. 

“ Oh, don’t look down,” she said. “ I haVe heard of peo- 
ple being caught, in spite of themselves, by some charm in 
it.” The movement was quiet involmitary and simple ; but, 
on second thoughts, Oona drew away her hand, and blushed 
a little. “ Besides, you put the boat out of trim,” she said. 

“If I should ever be in deadly danger,” said Walter, 
with the seriousness which had been in his face all along, 
“ will you put out your hand like that, without reflection, 
and save me?” 

“ I think we are talking nonsense, and feeling nonsense ; 
for it seems to me as if w^e had escaped from something. 
jS^ow Ilamish is pleased; the boat is trimmed. Don’t you 
think,” she said, with an effort to turn off graver subjects, 
“ that it is a pity those scientific people who can do every- 
thing should not tunnel down through that centre of the 
earth you w^ere speaking of, straight through to the other 
side ot the world ? Then w'e might be dropped’ through to 
Australia without any trouble. I have a brother there ; in- 
deed I have a brother in most places. Mamma and I might 
go and see Rob without any trouble, or he might come home 
for a dance, poor fellow ; he was always very fond of danc- 
ing.” 

Thus she managed to fill up the time till they reached 
the isle. It lay upon the surface of that great mirror, all 
fringed and feathered with its bare trees ; the^ occasional 
color in the roofs gleaming back again out of the w^ater, a 
little natural fastness, safe and sure. As Oona was later in 
returning than had been expected, the little garrison of 
w^omen in the isle w^as all astir and watching for her coming. 
Out of one of the upper w indows there was the head of a 
young maid visible, gazing down the loch ; and Mrs. Forres- 
ter, in her furred cloak, was standing in the porch, and 
Mysie half way down to the beach, moving from point to 
point of vision. 


THE WIZARHS SOA\ 


158 

“ They are all about but old Cookie,” said Oona. “ It is a 
terrible business when I am late. They think everything 
that is dreadful must have liappened, and that makes a 
delightful sensation when I get home safe and well. I am 
every day rescued from a watery grave, or saved from some 
dreadful accident on vShore, in my mother’s imagination. 
She gives herself the misery of it. and then she has the 
pleasure of it,” cried the girl, 'with the amused cynicism of 
youth. 

“ But to-day you bring a real fugitive with you— an es- 
caped— what shall I call myself ? — escaped not from harm, 
but from doing harm— which is the most dangerous of the 
two.” 

You will never do harm to the poor folk,” said Oona, 
looking at him with kind eyes. 

“Never, while I am in my senses, and know. I want 
you to promise me something before we land.” 

“You must make haste, then, and ask; for there is 
Mysie ready with the boat-hook,” said Oona, a little 
alarmed. 

“ Promise me— if it ever occurs that harm is being done in 
my name, to make me know it. Oh, not a mere note sent to 
my house; I might never receive it, like the last; but to 
make me know. See me, speak to me, think even : — and you 
will save me.” 

“ Oh, Lord Erradeen, you must not put such a responsi- 
bility on me. How can 1, a girl that is only a country neigh- 
bor ” 

“ Promise me ! ” he said. 

“ Oh, Lord Erradeen, this is almost tyrannical. Y"es, if I 
can— if T think anything is concealed from you. Here I am, 
Mysie, (piite safe ; and of course mamma has been making 
herself miserable. I have brought Lord Erradeen to lunch- 
eon,” Oona said. 

“ Ell, my lord, but we’re glad to see you,” said Mysie, 
with a gracious ease of hospitality. “ They said you were 
going Avithout saying good-by, but T would never be- 
lieve it. It is just bis lordship, inem, as I said it was,” she 
called to Mrs. Forrester, who was hastening down the slope. 

The mistress of the island came doAvn tripping, with her 
elderly graces, Avaving her white delicate hands. 

“ Oh, Oona, my dear, but I’m thankful to see you, and 
nothing happened,” she cried ; “ and ye are very welcome. 
Lord Erradeen. I thought you would never go aAvay AAdth- 
out saying good-by. Come away up to the house. It' is late, 
late, for luncheon ; but there Avill be some reason ; and I 
never haA; e any heart to take a meal by myself. Everything 
is ready: if it’s not all spoiled?” Mrs. Forrester added, 
turning round to Mysie, as she shook hands Avith the unex- 
pected guest. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


159 

“ Oh, no fear of that, mem,” said the factotum, “ wei-e 
well enough used to waiting in this house : an hour, half an 
liour, is just nothing. The trout is never put down to 
lire till we see the boat; hut I maun away and tell 
the cook.” 

“ And you will get out some of the good claret,” Mrs. 
Forrester cried. “ Come away— come away. Lord Err adeem 
We have just been wondering what had become of you Tt 
is quite unfriendly to be at Auchnasheen and not come over 
to see us. Oona, rmi, my dear, and take off yopr things. 
Lord Erradeen will take charge of me. I am fain of an arm 
when I can get one up the brae. When the boys were at 
home I always got a good pull up. And where did you fore- 
gather you two ? I am glad Oona had the sense to bring 
you with her. And I hope the trout will not be sjioiled,” 
she said with some anxiety. “ Mysie is just too confident — 
far too confident. She is one that thinks nothing can go 
wrong on the isle.” 

“ That is my creed too,” said W alter with an awakening of 
his natural inclination to make himself agreeable, and yet a 
more serious meaning in the words. 

“ Oh fie ! ” said Mrs. Forrester, shaking her head, “ to flat- 
ter a simple person like me ! We have but little, very little 
to offer ; the only thing in our favor is that it’s offered with 
real goodwill. And how do you like Auchnasheen ? and are 
you 3ust keeping it up as it was in the old lord’s time ? and 
how is Mary Fleming, tlie housekeeper, that was always an 
ailing body?” These questions, with others of the same 
kind, answered the purpose of conversation as they ascended 
to the house— with little intervals between, for Mrs. For- 
rester was a little breathless though she did not care to say 
so, and preferred to make pauses now and then to point out 
t he variations of the landscape. “ Though I know it so well 
I never find it two days the same,” she said. None of these 
transparent little fictions, so innocent, so natural, were un- 
known to her friends, and the sight of them had a curiously 
sti’engthening and soothixig effect upon Walter, to ^yhom 
the gentle perseverance of those amiable foibles so simple 
and evident, gave a sense of reality and nature which had 
begun to be wanting in his world, His heart grew lighter 
as' he watched the “ways” of this simple woman, about 
Avhose guiles and pretences even there was no mystery at 
all, and whose little affectations somehow seemed to make 
lier only more real. It gave him a momentary shock, how 
ever, when she turned round at her own door, and directed 
his attention to his old castle lying in lines of black and gray 
upon the glistening water. He drew her hastily within the 
Dorcli. 

“ It gets colder and colder,” he said ; “ the wind goes 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


i6« 

through and through one. Don’t let me keep you out in this 
chilly air.” 

“ I think you must have caught a little cold,” said Mrs. 
Forrester, concerned, “ for 1 do not find it so chilly for mj" 
part. To be sure, Loch Houran is never like your quiet 
landward places in England ; we are used up here to all the 
changes. Oona will be waiting for us by this time ; and I 
hope you are ready for your dinner. Lord Erradeen, for lam 
sure lam. 1 should say for your lunch : but when it comes 
to be so far, on in the day as this, these short winter days, 
Oona and me, we iust make it our dinner. Oh, there you 
are, my dear ? Lord Erradeen will like to step into Ronald’s 
room and wash his hands, and there will be nothing to wait 
for but the trout.” 

When they were seated at the table, with the trout 
cooked to periection, as fish only is where it is caught, Mrs. 
Forrester pressing him to eat with old-fashioned anxiety, 
and even Mysie, mio waited at table, adding affectionate im- 
portunities, Walter’s heart was toucned witii a sense of the 
innocence, the kindness, the gentle nature about him. He 
felt himself cared for like a child, regarded indeed as a sort 
of larger child to be indulged with every dainty they could 
think of, and yet in some ineffable way protected and guid- 
ed to by the simple creatures round him. The mistress and 
the maid had little friendly controversies as to what was 
best for him. 

“ I thought some good sherry wine, mem, and him com- 
ing off the water, would be better than yon cauld claret.” 

“ Well, perhaps you are right, Mysie ; but the young men 
nowadays are all for claret,” Mrs. Forrester said. 

“ Just a wee bittie more of the fish, my lord,” said Mysie, 
in his ear. 

“ No, no, Mysie,” cried her mistress. “ You know there 
ai’e birds coming. Just take away the trout, it is a little 
cold, and there’s far more nourishment in the grouse.’^ 

‘‘ To my mind, mem,’ said Mysie^ “ there is nothing bet- 
ter than a Loch Houran trout.” 

All this had the strangest effect upon Walter. To come 
into this simple house was like coming back to nature, and 
that life of childhood in which there are no skeletons or 
shadows. Even his mother had never been so sheltering, so 
safe, so real. Mrs. Methven had far more intellect and pas- 
sion than Mrs. Forrester. It had been impossible to her to 
bear the failure of her ideal in her boy. iter very love had 
been full of pain and trouble to both. But this other 
mother was of a different fashion. Whatever her children 
did was good in her eyes; but she protected,\ fed, took care 
of, extended her soft wings over them as if tpey still were 
in the maternal nest. The innocence of it all moved Wal- 
ter out of himself. \ 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


l63t 

Do yon know,” he said at last, “ what I have come from 
to your kind, sheltering house, Mrs. Forrester ? Do you 
know what everybody, even your daughter, thought of me 
two hours ago. 

I never thought any harm of you, Lord Erradeen,” said 
Oona, looking up hastily. 

Harm of him ! Dear me, Oona, vou are far, very far, 
from polite. And what was it they thought of you ? ” asked 
Mrs. Forrester. “Oona is so brusque, she just says what 
she thinks ; but sure am I it was nothing but good.’’ 

“ They thought,” said Walter, with an excitement which 
grew upon him as he went on. “that I, who have been poor 
myself all my life, that never had any money or lands till a 
few weeks ago, that I -was going to turn jioor womcevi and 
children out of their houses, out upon the world, out to the 
wet, cold mountain side, without a shelter in sight. Tiiey 
thought I Avas capable of that. An old Avoman mor:* thaii 
eighty, and a lot of little children ? Tliej’ thought I Avould 
turn them out ! Oh, not the poor creatures themselves, but 
others ; even Miss Oona. Is thy servant a dog—” cried the 
young man in a blaze of fiery agitation, the hot light of pain 
shining through the inAmluntary moisture in his eyes. 
“ Somebody says that in the Bible, I knoAv. Is thy servant 
a dog that he should do this thing ? ” 

“Oh, my dear!” cried Mrs. Forrester, in her sympathy, 
forgetting all distinctions, and only remembering that he 
Avas very like her Ronald, and Avas in trouble, “nobody, 
nobody thought you Avould do that. Oh no, no, fie no ! nobody 
had such a thought. If T could believe it of Oona I Avould 
not speak to her— I would : no, no, it was never believed. I, 
for one, I kneAv you Avould never do it. I saAv it,” cried the 
kind lady. “ in your eyes ! ” 

Though Walter had no real confidence in the independent 
judgment Avhich she asserted so unhesitatingly, yet he Avas 
consoled by the softness of the Avords, the assurance of the 
tone. 

“I did not think such things CA^er hai)pened in Scotland,” 
he said. “ It is Ireland one thinks of. And that it should be 
supposed I Avould do it has hurt me more than I can say— a 
stranger Avho had no one to stand up for me.” 

“That Avas just the Avay of it,” said Mrs. Forrester, sooth- 
ingly. “ We think here that there is something strange in 
English Avays. We never knoAv hoAv a thing Avill appear to 
them— that is hoAV it Avas. But T said all through that it was 
impossible, and I just Avrote to you last night (you would get 
my letter?) that you must not do it - for fear you might not 
hin^e understood hovv^ it Wcas.” 

“But there is another side to it,” said Oona, “Ave must 
not forget, mother. Sometimes it is said, you knoAv, that tlie 
poorfolk can do no good Avhere they are. We can all under* 


i 62 


THE W/ZARD\S SON. 


stand the shock of seeing them turned out of their houses, 
but then people say they cannot live there— that it would be 
better for themselves to be forced to go away.” 

“That is true, Ooim,” said her mother, facing round : “it 
is just a kind of starvation. When old Jenny went there 
first (she was in my nursery when I had one) there was just a 
l^rpetual craik about her rent. Her man Avas one of the 
Frasers, and a well doing, decent man, till he died, poor 
fellow, as we must all do : and since that I have heard little 
about it,for I think it was just out of her power to pay any- 
thing. Duncan Fraser, he is a veiy decent man, but I re- 
member the minister was saying if he Avas in Glasgow or 
l^aislej^, or some of those places, it Avould be better lor his 
family. I recollect that the minister cUd sav that.” 

“ So, Lord Erradeen,” said Oona, “ Avithout being Cruel 
you might— but I— we all like you ten times better that you 
couldn’t,” said the girl, impulsively. 

“Ay, that do we,” said her mother, ready to back up every 
side, “ that do Ave ! But I am not surprised. I knew that 
there aA'US nothing unkind either in your heart or your 
face.” 

“There Avas no time,” said Walter, “to think what was 
wise, or take into consideration, like a benevolent tyrant, 
what could be done for their good, Avithout consulting their 
inclinations : Avhich is Avhat you mean, Miss Forrester ” 

Oona smiled, with a little heightened color. It was the 
(‘ommencement of one of those pretty duels which mean 
mutual attraction rather than opposition. She said, Avith a 
little nod of her head. “ Go on.” 

“ But one thing is certain,” he said, with the almost solemn 
air which returned to his face at intervals, “ that I Avill 
rather want shelter myself than turn another man out of his 
house, on any argument— far less helnless women and child- 
ren. Did you laugh ? I see no laughing in it,” the young 
man cried. 

“Me— laugh!” cried Mrs. Forrester, though it A\aus at ^ 
Oona he had looked. “If I laughed it Avas for pleasure. 
Between ourselves. Lord Erradeen, (though they might per- 
haps be better aAvay) turning out a poor lamily out of their 
house is a thing I could never aAvay Avith. Oona may say 
Avhat she likes— it is not Christian. Oh, it’s not Christian ! I 
would have taken them in, as many as Mysie could have 
made room for: but I never could say*that it was according 
to Christianity. Oh no, Lord Erradeen ! I Avould have to 
be poor indeed— poor, poor indeed— before I Avould turn these 
poor folk away.’^ 

“ There would be no blessing upon the rest,” said Mysie, 
behind her mistress’s chair. 

“That is settled then,” said Walter, whose heart grew 
lighter and lighter, “ But that is not alb Tell me, if I Avere 


The wizARb's son. 


163 

benevolent despot. Miss Forrester — you who know every- 
thing—what should I do now ?— for it cannot stop there.” 

“We’ll go into the drawing-room before you settle that” 
said Mrs. Forrester. “ Dear me, it is q^uite dark ; we will 
want the candles, Mysie. There is so little light in the after- 
noon at this time of the year. I am sorry there is no gentle- 
man to keep you in countenance with your glass of wine, 
Lord Frradeen. If you had been here when my Ronald or 
Jamie, or even Rob, was at home ! But they are all away, 
one to every airt, and the house is very lonely without any 
boys in it. Are you coming v\ith us ? Well, perhaps it mil 
be more cheerful. Dear me, Mysie, you have left that door 
open, and we will Just be perislied with the cold.” 

“ Let me shut it,” Walter said. 

He turned to the open door with a pleasant sense of taking 
the place of one of those absent boys whom the mother 
regretted so cheerfully, and v/itli a lighter heart than he 
could have thought possible a few houi’s ago. But at the 
first glance he stood arrested with a sudden chill that seemed 
to paralyze him. It was almost dark upon the loch ; the 
water gleamed with that polished blackness through which 
the boat had cut as through something solid ; but blacker 
now, shining like jet agamst the less responsive gloom of the 
land and Mis. The framev/ork of the doorway made a 
picture of this night scene, with the more definite dark- 
ness of the old castle in the centre, rising opaque against 
the softer distance. Seeing that Lord Erradeen made a 
sudden pause, Oona went towards him, and looked out too 
at the familiar scene. She had seen it often before, but it 
had never made the same impression upon her. “ Oh, the 
light — the light again ! ” she said, with a cry of surprise. It 
came up in a pale glow as she was looking, faint, but throw- 
hig up in distinct revelation the mass of the old tower against 
the background. Walter, who seemed to have forgotten 
what he had come to do, was roused by her voice, and mth 
nervous haste and almost violence shut the door. Thei*e 
was not much light in the little hall, and they could see each 
other’s faces but imperfectly, but his had already lost the 
soothed and relieved expression which had replaced its 
agitated aspect. He scarcely seemed to see her as he turned 
round, took up his hat from the table, and went on confusedly 
before, forgetting ordinary decorums, to the drawing-room, 
where Mrs. Forrester had already made herself comfortable 
ill her usual chair, with the intention of for a few monients 
“ Just closing her eyes.” Mysie had not brought the lights, 
and he stood before the surprised lady like a dark shadow, 
with his hat in his hand. i 

“ I have come to take my leave, he said ; to thank you, 

and say good-by.” . , ir 

“Dear me” said Mrs. Forrester, rousmg herself, “you 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


1O4 

are in a great liurry, Lord Erradeeii. Why should you he so 
anxious to go V You have nobody at Auchnasheen to be kept 
waiting. Toots ! you must just wait now you are here for a 
cup of tea at least, and it will take Ilamish a certain time to 
get out the boat.” 

“ 1 must go,” he said, with a voice that trembled : then 
suddenly threw down his hat on the floor and himself upon 
a low chair close to her, ‘‘ unless,” he said, “unless you will 
complete your charity by taking me in for the night. Will 
you keep me for the night ? Put me in any corner. I don’t 
mind-only let me stay.” 

“ Let you stay ! ” cried the' lady of the isle. She sprang 
u]) as lightly as a girl at this ai)peai, with no further idea of 
“ closing her eyes.” “ Will I keep you for the night ? But 
that 1 will, and with all my heart ! ’ There is Bonald’s room, 
where you washed your hands, just all ready, nothing to do 
])ut put on the sheets, and plenty of his things in it in case 
you should want anythiiig. Let you stay ! ” she cried, with 
delighted excitement, “ it is what I would have asked and 
pressed you to do. And then we can do something for your 
cold, for I am sure you have a cold ; and Oona and you can 
settle all that business about the tyrant, which is more than 
my poor head is equal to. Oona, my dear, will you tell 
Mysie V— where is Mysie? I will just speak to her myself. 
W e must get him better of his cold, or what will his mother 
think ? He must have some more blankets, or an eider-down, 
which will be lighter, and a good fire.” 

If her worst enemy had asked hospitality from Mrs. For- 
rester, she would have forgotten all her wrongs and opened 
her doors wide ; how much more when it was a friend and 
neighbor ? The demand itself was a kindness. She tripped 
away without a thought of her disturbed nap, and was soon 
lieard in colloquy with Mysie, who shared all her sentiments 
in this respect. Oona, who stood silent by the fire, with a 
sense that she was somehow in the secret, though she did 
not know what it was, had a less easy part. The pang of 
svmpathy she felt was almost intolerable, but she did not 
know how to express it. The quiet room seemed all at once 
to have become the scene of a struggle, violent though in- 
visible, which she followed dumbly with an instinct beyond 
her power to understand. After an interval of silence which 
seemed endless, he spoke. 

“ It must be intended that we should have something to 
do with each other,” he said, suddenly. “ When you are 
there I feel stronger. If your mother had refused me, I 
should have been lost.” 

“It was impossible tliat she should have refused you, 
Lord Erradeen.” 

“ I wish you would not call me by that ill-omened name. 
It is a horror to me ; and then if all that is true How is 


THE WIZARD'S SOH. 


it possible that one man should lord it over an entire race 
for so long? Did you ever hear of a similar case? Oh! 
don’t go away. If you knew what an ease it is to speak to 
you ! N o one else understands. Is makes one feel as if one 
were restored to natural life to be able to speak of it, to ask 
advice. Toothing,” he cried suddenly, getting up, picking up 
his hat as if about to leave the house, “ nothing— shall induce 
me to go ” 

“ Oh, no, no ! ” she cried, “ you must not go ; ” though she 
could not have told why. 

He put down the hat again on the table with a strange 
laugh. “ I was going then,” he said, “ but I will not. I will 
do exactly as you say .” He came up to her where she stood 
full of trouble watching him. “I dare say you think I am 
going wrong in my head, but it is not that. I am being 
dragged — with ropes. Give me your hand tP hold by. There ! 
that IS safety, that is peace. Your hand is as soft— as snow,” 
cried the young man. His own were burning, and the cold 
fresh touch of the girl seemed to diffuse itself through all 
his being. Oona was as brave in her purity as the other Hna, 
the spotless lady of romance, and would have shrunk from 
no act of succor. But it agitated her to have this strange 
appeal for help. She did not withdraw her hand, but yet 
drew away a little, alarmed, not knowing what to do. 

“You must not think,” she said, faltering, “that any one 
—has more power over another than— he permits them to 
have.” 

She spoke like one of the oracles, not knowing what she 
said ; and he listened with a slight shake of his head, not 
making any reply. After a moment he yielded to the re- 
luctance which made itself felt in her, and let her hand go. 

“ Will you come with me outside ? ” he said ; “ not there, 
where that place is. 1 think the cold and th(‘ night do one 
good. Can we go out the other way ? ” 

Oona accepted this alternative gladly. “We can go to 
the walk, where it is always dry,” she said, with an assiimn- 
tion of cheerfulness. “It Iooks to the south, and that is 
where the flowers grow best.” As she led the way through 
the hall, Walter took up Mrs. Forrester’s furred cloak whicli 
hung there, and put it roiuid her with a great deal of tendei - 
ness and care. The girl’s heart beat as he took this offica 
upon him, as one of her brothers might have done. It was 
the strangest conjunction. He was not thinking of her at 
all, she felt, save as affording some mysterious help in those 
mysterious miseries ; and yet there was a sweetness in tin" 
thought he took, even at this extraordinary moment, for hf r 
comfort. There could have been no such dangerous com- 
bination of circumstances for Oona, whose heart was full of 
the early thrill of romance, and that inextinguishable pity 
and attraction towards the suffering which tells for so much 


i66 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


in the life of women. A softness and melting of the heart 
indescribable came over her as she felt his light touch on 
her shoulders, and found herself enveloped, as it were, in hhi 
sliadow and the sentiment of his presence. He was not 
thinking of her, but only of his need of her, fantastic though 
that might be. But her heart went out towards him with 
that wonderful feminine impulse which is at once inferior 
and superior, full of dependence, yet full of help. To follow 
all his movements and thoughts as well as she could t\ith 
wistful secondariness; yet to be ready to guide, to save, 
when need was— to dare anythmg for that oftice. There had 
never been anything in Oona’s life to make her aware of 
this strange, sweet, agitating position— the unchangeable 
one between the two mortal companions who have to walk 
the ways of earth together. But his mind was pre-occupied 
with other thoughts than her, while hers were wholly bent 
upon him ajid his succor. It was dangerous for her, steal- 
ing her heart out of her breast in the interest, the sympathy, 
the close contact involved ; but of none of these things wns 
he very clearly aware in the preoccupation of his thoughts. 

They walked up and down for a time together, behind the 
house, along the broad walk, almost a terrace, of the kitchen 
garden, v/here there was a deep border filled in summer with 
every kind of old-fashioned flowers. It was bare now, with 
naked fruit-trees against the wall, but the moon was hid in 
clouds, and it was impossible to see anything, except, from 
the end of the terrace, the little landing-place below, and the 
first curves of the walk leading up to the house, and ail 
round the glimmer of the loch. Ine stillness had been broken 
by the sound of a boat, but it was on the Auchnasheen side, 
and though Oona strained her eyes she had not been able to 
see it, and concluded that, if coining to the isle at all, it must 
have touched the opposite point where there was a less easy, 
Init possible landing-place. As they reached the end of the 
terrace, however, she was startled to see a figure detacli it- 
self from the gloom and walk slowly towards the house. 

“ The boat must have run in under the bushes, though I 
(*annot see it,” she said; “ but there is some one coming up 
the walk.” 

Walter turned to look with momentary alarm, but pres- 
ently calmed down. “ It is most likely old Symington, who 
takes a paternal charge of me,” he said. 

Soon after they heard the steps, not heavy, but distmctly 
audible, crushing the gravel, and to Oona’s great surprise, 
though Walter, a stranger to the place, took no notice of the 
fact, these footsteps, mstead of going to the door, as would 
liave been natural, came round the side of the house and ap- 
proached the young pair in their walk. The person of the 
new-comer was quite unknown to Oona. He took off his hat 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 167 

with an air of well-bred courtesy— like a gentleman, not like 
a servant— and said,— 

“I am reluctant to interrupt such a meeting, but there is 
a boat below for Lord Erradeen.” 

Walter started violently at the sound of the voice, w'hicli 
was, notwithstanding, agreeable and soft, though with a 
tone of command in it. He came to a sudden stop, and turned 
round quickly as if he could not believe his ears. 

“ There is a boat below,” the stranger repeated, “ and it is 
extremely cold ; the men are freezing at tneir oars. They 
have not the same delightful inspiration as tlieir master, 
wlm^ forgets that he has business to settle this final night 

Walter gave a strange cry, like the cry of a hunted 
creature. “ In God’s name,” he exclaimed, “ what have you 
to do here ? ” 

“My good fellow,” said the otheiv“you need not try your 
hand at exorcising ; others have made ’ that attempt before 
you. Is Circe’s island shut to ail footsteps save yours ? 
But, even then, you could not shut out me. I must not say 

Armida’s garden in this state of the temperature ” he 

said. 

“Who is it?” asked Oona in great alarm under her 
breath. 

“ Let me answer you,” the intruder said. “ It is a sort of 
a guardian who has the first right to I.ord Erradeen’s con- 
sideration. Love, as even the copybooks will tell, ought to 
be subordinate to duty.” 

“ Love ! ” cried Oona, starting from the young man’s side. 
The indignant blood rushed to her face. She turned towards 
the house in sudden anger and shame and excitement. 
Circe? Armida! Was it she to whom he dared to apply 
these insulting names ? 

Walter caught her cloak with both hands. 

“Do you not see,” he said, “that he wants to take you 
from me, to drive you away, to have me at his mercy ? Oona ! 
you would not see a man drown and refuse to hold out your 
hand?” 

“This is chivalrous,” said the stranger, to put a woman 
between you and that— which you are afraid to meet.” 

To describe the state of excited feeling and emotion in 
which Oona listened to this dialogue, woiud be impossible. 
She was surprised beyond measure, yet, in the strange 
excitement of .the encounter, could not take time to wonder 
or seek an explanation. She had to act in the meantime, 
whatever the explanation might be. Her heart clanged in 
her ears. Tenderness, pity, indignation, shame, thrilled 
through her. She had been insulted, she had been appealed 
to by the most sacred voice on earth— the voice of suffering. 


THE WIZARD- S SON. 


1 68 

She stood for a moment looking at the two shadows before 
her, for they were little more. 

“And if he is afraid why should not he turn to a woman ? ” 
she said with an impulse she could scarcely understand. 
“ If he is afraid, I am not afraid. This isle belongs to a 
woman. Come and tell her, if you will, what you want. 
Let nw mother judge, who is the mistiess of this place. 
Lord Erradeen has no right to break ids w^ord to her for any 
man : but if my mother decides that you have a better claim, 
he will go.” 

“I wdl abide by every word she says,” Walter cried. 

The stranger burst into a laugh. 

“ [ am likely to put forth my claim before such a 
tribunal ! ” he said. “ Come, you have fought stoutly for 
your lover. Make a virtue ot necessity now, and let him 
go.” 

“ He is not my lover,” cried Oona, “ but I will not let him 
go.” She added after a moment, with a sudden change of 
tone, coming to herself, and feeling the extraordinary 
character of the discussion. “ Tins is a very strange conver- 
sation to occur here. I think we are all out of our senses. 
It is like the theatre. I don’t know your name, sir, but if 
you are Lord Erradeen’s guardian, or a friend of his, I invite 
you to come and see my mother. Most likely,” she added, 
with a slight faltering, “ she will know you, as she knows all 
the family.” Then with an attempt at playfulness, “ If it is 
to be a struggle between this gentleman and the ladies of the 
isle. Lord Erradeen, tell him he must give way.” 

The stranger took off his hat and made her a profound 
bow. 

“ I do so on the instant,” he said. 

The two young people stood close together, their shadows 
confounded in one, and there did not seem time to draw a 
breath before they were alone, with no sound or trace 
remaining to prove that the discussion in which a moment 
before their hearts liad been beating so loudly had ever 
existed at all. Oona looked after the stranger witli a gasp. 
She clung to Walter, holding his arm tight. 

“ Where has he gone ? ” she cried in a piercing whisper. 
She trembled so after her l>oldness that she would have 
fallen but for his sustaining arm. “Who is he? Where 
has he gone? That is not the way to the beach. Call after 
him, call after him, and tell him the way.” 

Walter did not make any reply. He drew her arm closer 
through his, and turned with her towards the house. As for 
Oona, she seemed incapable of any thought but that this 
strange intruder niight be left on the isle. 

TT orcliard and then among the rocks, 

i 8’et into the water. 

( all to him, Lord Erradeen— or stop, we will send Hamish. 


THE WlZARirs SOA\ 169 

Here .s Traiuisli. Oh, llamish! the gentleman has taken the 
wrong way ” 

“It will just be a boat that has come for my lord ’’ said 
Hamish. “ I tellt them my lord was biding all night, but 
nothing would satisfee them, but I had to come up and get 
his lordship’s last word.” 

“Oh, he 'is not going, Hamish! but- there is a gentle- 
man ” 

Walter interrupted her with an abruptness that startled 
Oona. 

“ Let them see that every one is on board— and return at 
once,” he said. 

“ Oh there will just be eveiybody on board that ever was, 
for none has come ashore,” said Hamish. “ What was you 
saying about a gentleman, Miss Oona? There will be no 
gentleman. It is joost Duncan and another man with him, 
and they cried upon me, Hamish ! and I answered them. 
But there will be no gentleman at all,” Hamish said. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

It was very dark upon Loch Houran that night. Whether 
nature was aware of a dark spirit, more subtle and more 
powerful than common man, roaming about in the darkness, 
temporarily baffled by agencies so simple that the potency 
almost amused while it confounded him— and shrank froiii 
the sight of him, who could tell ? but it was dark, as a night 
in which there was a moon somewhere which ought never 
to have been. The moon was on the wane, it was true, 
which is never like her earlier career, but all trace and 
influence of her were lost in the low-lying cloud whicli 
descended from the sky like a hood, and wrapped everything 
in gloom. The water only seemed to throw a black glimmer 
into the invisible world where all things brooded in silence 
and cold, unseen, unmoving. The only thing that lived and 
shone in all this mysterious still iiniverse \vas one warm, 
window full of liglit, that shone from the isle. It was a 
superstition of the simple mistress of the house that there 
shoukl be no shutter or curtain there, so that any late “ trav- 
eller bV land or water ” might be cheered by this token of 
life and possible help. Had that traveller, needing human 
succor, been led to claim shelter there, it would have been 
accorded fearlessly. “Exceeding peace had made Ben 
Adhem bold.” The little innocent household of defenceless 
Avomen had not a fear. Hamish onh , who perhaps felt a 
responsibility as their sole possible defender, might have 
received with suspicion such an unexpected guest. 

The mysterious person already referred to—whose comings 


176 


7' HE ]VIZARD\S SON. 

and goings were not as those of other men, and whose 
momentary discomfiture by such simple means perplexed 
yet partially amused him, as has been said, passed by that 
winaow at a later houi\ and stood for a moment outside. 
The thoughts Muth which, out of the external cold and dark- 
ness, which affected him not all, he regarded the warm 
interior ’where simple human souls, shelteuing themselves 
against the elements gathered about their fire, were strange 
enough. I'he cold, ^^icll did not touch him, would have* 
made them shiver ; the dark, which to his eyes was as the 
(lay, would have confused their imaginations and discour- 
aged their minds ; and yet together by their lire they were 
beyond his power. He looked in upon their simplicity and 
calm and safety with that sense of the superiority of the in- 
nocent which at the most supreme moment will come in to 
dash all the triumphs of guile, and all the arts of the schemer. 
^yhat he saw was the simplest cheerful scene, the fire blaz- 
ing, the lamp burnmg steadily, a young man and a girl seated 
together, not in any tender or impassioned conjunction, but 
soberly discussing, calculating, argumg, thought to thought 
and face to face ; the mother, on the other side, somewhat 
faded, smiling, not over wise, with her book, to wdiich she 
paid little attention, looking up from time to time, and saying 
something far from clever. He might have gone in among 
them, and she would haVe received him with that same 
smile and offered him her best, thinking no evil. He had a 
thousand experiences of mankind, and knew^ how- their minds 
could be worked upon and their imagmations infiamed, and 
their ambittons roused. Was he altogether baffled by this 
simplicity, or was there some lingering of human ruth in 
him, which kept hhn from carrying disturbance into so harm- 
less a scene? or was it only to estimate those forces that he 
stood and w^atched them, wdth sometlringto learn, even in 
his vast knowledge, from this unexpected escape of the 
fugitive, and the simple means by wdiich he had been baffled 
for the moment, and his prey taken from him? For the 
moment !— that was all. 

“ Come, come now,'’ Mrs. Forrester said. “ You cannot 
argue away like that, and fight all night. You must make 
up your bits of differences, and settle what is to be done ; 
for it is time we had the Books, and let the women and 
Hamish get to their beds. They are about all day, and \\\) 
early in the morning, not like us that sit with our hands 
before us. Oona, you must just cry upoiiMysie, and let them 
all come ben. And if you wdll hand me the big Bible that is 
upon yon table— since you are so kind. Lord Erradeen.” 

At this simple ceremonial— the kindly servant-people 
streaming in, the hush upon their little concerns, the unison 
of voices, from Oona’s, soft with youth and gentle breeding, 
to the rough bass of Hamish, in words that spectator knew 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


I7r 

as well as any— the same eyes looked on, with feelings we 
cannot attempt to fathom. Contempt, envy, the wonder of 
the wise over the everlastmg, inexplicable superiority of the 
innocent, were these the sentiments with which he gazed ? 
But in the night and silence there was no interpreter of 
these thoughts. How he came or went was his own secret. 
The window was closed soon after, the lights extinguished, 
and the darkness received this little community of the living 
and breathing, to keep them warm and unseen and uncon- 
scious till they shouM be claimed again by the cheerful day. 

The household, however, though it presented an aspect of 
such gentle calm,, was not in reality so undistiu’becl as it 
appeared. In Oona’s chamber, for one, there was a tumult 
of new emotions which to the girl were incomiirehensible, 
strange, and terrible, and sweet. Lord Ertadeen was but a 
new acquaintance, she said to herself, as she sat over her 
fire, with everything hushed and silent about her ; neverthe- 
less the tumult of feeling in her heart was all connected with 
him. Curiously enough, the strange encounter in the garden 
— of which she had received no explanation— had disappeared 
from her thoughts altogether. The rise and sudden dawn 
of a new life in her own bemg was more near and momentous 
than any mysterious circumstances, however unlike the 
common. By and by she might come to that— in the mean- 
time a sentiment sola^ occupied all her con- 

sciousness. She had known him during the last week only : 
three times in all, on three several days, had they met ; but 
what a change these three days had made in the life that 
had been so free and so sweet, full of a hundred interests, 
without any that were exclusive and absorbing. In a 
moment, 'without knowing what was coming, slie had been 
launched into this new world of existence. She was humbled 
to think of it, yet pruud. She felt herself to have become a 
sort of shadow of liim, watching his movements with an 
anxiety which was without any parallel in her experience, 
yet at the same time able to interpose for him, when he 
could not act for himself, to save him. It seemed to Oona 
suddenly, that everything else had slipped a'^vay from her, 
) eceding into the distance. The things that had occupied 
her before were now in the background. All the stage of life 
was filled with him, and the events of their brief intercourse 
had become the only occupation of her thoughts. She 
wondered and blushed as she wandered in that maze of 
recollections at her owm boldness in assuming the guidance 
of him; yet felt it to be inevitable — the only thing to be 
done. And the strange new^ thrill which ran through her 
veins when he had appealed to her, when he had implored 
her to stand by him, came back v/ith an acute sweet mixture 
of pleasure and pain. She declared to herself. Yes !— with a 
swelling of her heai't— she would stand by him, let.it co^st 


172 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


her what it might. There had been no love spoken or 
thought of between them. It was not love: what was it? 
Friendship, fraternity, the instinctive discovery of one by 
another, that divination which brings those together who 
can help each other. It was -he, not she, who wanted help— 
what did it matter which it was ? in giving or in receiving 
it was a new world. But whether it was a demon or an 
angel that had thus got entrance into that little home of 
peace and security— who could tell? Whatever it was, it 
was an inmate hitherto unknown, one that must work 
change, both in earth and Heaven. 

Everything that could trouble or disturb had vanished 
from the darJk world outside before Oona abandoned her 
musings— or rather before she felt the chill of the deep 
night round her— and twisted up her long hair, and drew 
aside the curtains from her window as was her custom that 
.she might see the sky from her bed. There had been a 
change in the midnight hours. The clouds at last had 
opened, and in the chasm made by their withdrawal was the 
lamp of the waning moon “ lying on her back ” with a sort 
of mystic disturbance and ominous clearness, as if she w^ere 
lighting the steps of some evil enterprise, guiding a traitor 
or a murderer to the refuge of some one betrayed. Oona 
shivered as she took refuge in the snow-white nest Avhich 
had never hitherto brought her anything but profound 
youthful repose, and the airy flitting dreams of a soul at 
rest. But though this momentary chill was impressed upon 
her senses, neither fear nor discouragement was in her soul. 
She closed her eyes only to see more clearly the htce of thi.s 
new influence in her life, to feel her pulses tingle as she 
I'emembered all the events of the three days’ Odyssey the 
strange magical history that had sprung into being in a 
moment, yet was alive with such endless interest, and full of 
such a chain of incidents. Wliat was to be the next chapter 
in it? Or was it to have another chapter? She felt already 
with a deep drawing of her breath, and warned herself that 
all would probably end here, and everything relapse into 
vacancy— a conclusion inconceivable, yet almost certain, she 
said to herself. But this conscioushe.ss only excited her 
the more. There was something in it of that w^hirl of 
desperation which gives a wild quickening to enjoyment in 
the sensation of momentariness and possible ending— the 
snatching of a fearful joy. 

This sudden end came, however, sooner than she thought ; 
they had scarcely met at the breakfast table when Lord 
Erradeen begged Mrs. Forrester to allow him to send for his 
servant, and make arrangements for his departure from the 
isle instead of returning to Auchnaslieeu. “I have not felt, 
safe or at ease, save here, since 1 came to the loch,” 
he said; looking round him with a gratenil sense of 


THE WIZAKHS SON, 


173 

the cheerful quiet and security. His eyes met those 
of Oona, who was somewhat pale after her long vigil 
and broken rest. She had recognized at once with a pang 
the conclusion she had foreseen, the interruption of her new 
history which was implied in the remorseless unintentional 
abruptness of this announcement. He was going away ; and 
neither felt any inducement to stay, nor any hesitation in an- 
nouncing his resolution. She had known it would be so, 
and yet there was a curious pang of surprise in it wliich 
seemed to arrest her heart. Notwithstanding, as in duty 
])ound, she met his look with a smile in her eyes. 

“ Hoots,” said Mrs. Forrester, “ you flatter the isle. Lord 
Krradeen. We know that is just nonsense ; but for all that 
we take it kind that you should like our little house. It will 
always be found here, just faithful and fiiendly, whenever 
you come back. And certainly ye shall send for your man 
or make what arrangements suits you. There’s the libiary 
quite free and at your service for any writing you may have 
to do, and Hamish will take any message to Auchnasheeii, or 
wherever you please. The only thing that grieves me is that 
you should be so set on going to-day.” 

That must be— that must he ! ” cried M'alter ; and then 
he began to make excuses and apologies. There were cir- 
cumstances which made it indispensable — there were many 
things that made him anxious to leave Auchnasheen. No, 
it was not damp— which was the instant suggestion of Mrs. 
Forrester. There were other things. He was going back to 
Sloebury to his mother (Mrs. Forrester said to England), 
and it was so recently that he had entered upon his proper- 
ty, that there was still a great deal to do. After he had 
made this uncompromising statement of the necessities that 
he had to be guided by, he looked across the table at Oona 
once more. . , 

“ And Miss Forrester is so kind as to taxe in hand tor me 
the settlement of the cotters. It will be her doing, 1 hojie 
they will not blame me for that alarm yesterday, which was 
no fault of mine ; but the new arrangement will be your do- 
ing altogether. , ^ 

“ I shall not take the credit,” said Oona. 1 had not even 
the boldness to suggest it. It was your own thought, and 
they will bless you so, that wherever you are, at Sloebury or 
the end of the world, you must feel your heart warm 

She said this with great self-command ; but she^was pale, 
and there was a curious giddiness stealing over her. ►me 
seemed to feel the solid ground slip away from under lier 

“My heart,” he said, looking at her with a grateful look, 
“ will always be warm when I think of the Isle, and all that 
has been done for me here.” 

“ Nc>Wj Lord PhTacleen,” ;:':tid Mrs. Forrester, ’you \\il; 


174 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


just make Oona and me vain with all these bonnie speeches. 
We are always glad to be friendly and neighborlike, but 
what have we been able to do?— ;just nothing. When you 
come back again und let your friends see a little more of 
you, we will all do what we can to make the loch agreeable, 
feut I hope it will be warmer weather, and more pleasure in 
moving about. You will be back no doubt, if not sooner, 
in time for the grouse.” 

He grew pale in spite of himself, and Oona looking at him 
felt the steady earth slip more and more away. 

“ I don’t know,” he said, hurriedly, “when I may come 

back— not before I— not sooner than I can 1 mean there 

are a great many things to look after ; and my mother ” 

His eyes seemed to seek hers again as if asking her sym- 
pathy, and appealing to her knowledge. “ Not before I must 
—not sooner than I can help.” that was what he meant to 
say. Oona gave him a faint -smile of response. It was so 
wonderful that when she understood him so completely, he 
should understand her so little, and never suspect that there 
was anything cruel in those words. But she made the re- 
sponse he required, and strengthened him by that instinc- 
tive comprehension of him in which he put so strange a 
trust. There was an eagerness in all his preparations for go- 
ing away which he almost forced upon her notice, so strong 
was his confidence in her sympathy. He lost no time about 
imy of these arrangements, but sent Hamish with his boat to 
Auchnasheen for S^'mingdon, and wrote down his instruc- 
tions for Shaw, and talked of what he was going to do 
when he got ‘ home,” with the most absolute insensibili- 
ty to any feeling in the matter save his own. And it seemed 
to Uona that the moment's flew, and the quick morning melt- 
ed awav, and before she could collect her thoughts the time 
came when her mother and she walked down to the beach 
with him, smiling, to see him off. There had never been a 
word said between them of that conversation in the garden 
on the prevpis night. Only when he was lust about to 
leave, he cast a glance toward the walk where that encoun- 
ter had taken place, and turned to her with a look such as 
cannot pass betwe^i any but those that have some secret 
link ot mutual knov.dedge. Her mother was talking chee^- 
fully of the view and the fine morning after the rain, walk- 
ing befcue them, when he gave Oona that look of mutual im- 
derstandmg. I owe you everything,” he said, in a low tone 
01 almost passionate fertror. Presently she found herself 
shaking hands with him as if he had been nothing more than 
tne acquaintance of three days which he was, and wishing 

Odyssey came to an end! 
and the history stopped in the course of making. She stooci 
still for a little, watching the boat and the widening lines it. 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 175 

drew along the surface of the water. “ Sometimes to watch 
a boat movhig off, will give you a giddiness,” ]\Irs. Forrester 
said. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

There could be no greater contrast than that which ex- 
isted between Walter Methven, Lord Erradeen, liurryhig 
away with the sense of a man escaped Avith his life from the 
shores of Loch Houran and Oona Forester left behind upon 
the isle. 

It was not only that he had all at once become the first 
object in her life, and she counted for little or nothing in his. 
That was not the question. She had been for sufficient space 
of time, and with sufficient stress of circumstances to make 
the impression one which would not die easily, of the first 
importance in his thoughts ; and no doubt that impression 
would revive when he nad leisure from the overwhelming 
pre-occupation which was in his mind. But it was that he 
was himself full of an anxiety and excitement strong enough 
to dwarf every other feeling, which made the blood course 
through his veins, and inspired every thought ; Avhile she 
was left in a state more like vacancy than anything else, 
emptied out of everything that liad interested. The vigor- 
ous bend of the rowers to the oars as they carried him away 
was not more unlike the regretful languor of the Avomen as 
they stood on the beach, Mrs. Forrester Avaving her hand- 
kerchief, but Oona without even impulse enough in her to 
do that. 

As for Walter, he was all energy and impulse. He ar- 
ranged the portmanteau which Symington had brought Avith 
his OAvn hands, to leave the room for the sween of the oars, 
and quicken the crossing. His farcAvells were but half said. 
It seemed as if he could scarcely breathe till he got aAvay. 
Every stroke of the oars lightened his heart, and AAiien he 
Avas clear of that tragic Avater altogether, and sprang up upon 
the rude country Avagonette Avhich had been engaged at the 
inn to carry him to the station, his broAV relaxed, and tlie 
muscles of his mouth gave Avay as they had not done since 
liis first day on Loch Houraii. He gaA^e a look almost of 
hatred at the old castle, and then averted his face. When he- 
reached the railway, the means of communication Avith the 
Avorld he had known before, he was a different man. The 
horses had gone too sloAvly for him, so did the leisurely 
friendly trains on the Highland raihvay, Avith their broad 
large A^dndows for the sake of the views. Travellers, as a 
rule, did not wish to go too fast while they skirted those 
gleaming lochs, and ran along under shadow of the moun- 
tains, Thev liked to have somehodv to point out Avhich Ava;? 


TkF. iVrZARDK^ sox. 


f 7^ 

Liirli Ool and which 8t. Manan’s. It was too slow for Lord 
ihradeen, but still it was gonig away, lie began to think 
of all the commonplace accessories of life with a sort of en- 
thusiasm— the great railway stations, the Edinburgh Hotel, 
with its ordinary guests. He was so sick of everything coh- 
nected with his Highland property and with its history, that 
he resolved he would make no pause in Edinburgh, and 
would not go near Mr. Milnathort. The questions they 
'would no doubt put to him made him impatient even in 
thought. He would not subject himself to these; he would 
l>ut away altogether out of his mind, if he could, everything 
connected rvith it, and all that he had been seeing and hearing, 
(u-at least, had fancied lie heard and saw. 

But when Oona turned away from looking after the boat 
—which she was indeed the first to do, Mrs. Forrester wait- 
ing almost as long as it was within sight to wave her hand- 
kerchief if the departing guest should look l>ack— she felt 
herself and her life rinjfiied out all at once. LVhen she be- 
gan to think of it in the cold light of this sudden conclusion, 
a sense of humiliation ( amc over her. She blushed with hot 
shame at this altogether unasked, unreasonable, unnecessary 
resignation of herself and her interests to a stranger. He 
was nothing but a stranger, she said to herself; there was 
no remarkable ehaim in him either one way or another. 
She had not been at all affected by his first appearance. He 
was not handsome enough oi- clever enough, nor had he any 
special attraction to gain him so high a place. Somehow she 
had not thought of Walter in her m’st realization of the new 
interest which had pushed away all the other occupations 
out of her existence ; and she had not blushed in the high 
sense of expanded life and power to help. But now it moved 
her- with a certain shame to think that the sudden departure 
of a man whom she scarcely knew, and to wlioin she was no- 
thing, should thus have emntied out her existence and left a 
-bewildering blank in her heart. She went slowly up the 
walk, and went to her room, and there sat down vith a 
curious self-abandonment. It was all over, all ended and 
done. When he came into lier life it was accidentally, 
without any purpose in it on either side ; and now that he 
had gone out of it again, there was no anger, no sense of 
wrong, only a curious consciousness that everything had 
gone away— that the soil had slipped from her, and nothing 
was left, ^s'o, there was no reason at all to be angry — nobody 
was to blame. Then she laughed a little at herself at this 
eurious, wanton sort of trouble, intended by nobody — which 
neither he had meant to draw her into, nor she to bring upon 
henself. 

There was one thing however between her and this 
vacancy. He had left her a commission which any kmd- 
hearted girl would have thought a delightful one— to arrange 


THE \VTZARD\S SOX. iyy 

with the factor how the cotters were to be most effectually 
helped and provided for. It had been their thought at first 
—the young man being httle better instructed than the girl 
on such matters— that to make Duncan Fraser and the rest 
file proprietors of their little holdings would be th('. most 
effectual way of helping them, and would do the property of 
Lord Erradeen very little harm— a thing that Walter, un- 
accustomed to property, and still holding it lightly, con- 
templated with all the ease of the landless, never thinking 
of the thorn in the fiesh of a iiiece of alienated land in the 
midst of an estate, until it suddenly hashed upon him that 
his estates being all entailed, this step would he impossible. 
How was it to be done then? They had decided that Shaw 
would know best, and that some way of remitting the rents 
at least during the lifetime of the present Lord Ph*radeen 
must be settled upon, and secured to them at once. Oona 
had this commission left in her hands. She could have 
thought of none more delighfiil a few days ago, but now it 
seemed to make the future vacancy of life all the more evi- 
dent by the fact that here was one thing, and only one, before 
her to do. When that was done, what would happen ?— a re- 
turn upon the pleasant occupations, the amusements, the 
hundred little incidents which had filled the past ? After 
all, the past was only a week back. Can it ever return, an<l 

things be again as they were before? Oona had never 

reasoned or speculated on these matters till this moment. 
She had never known by experiment that the past cannot re- 
turn, or that which has been be once more ; but she became 
aware of it in a moment now. 

Then she got up and stood at her window and looked out 
on the unchanging landscape, and laughed aloud at herself. 
How ridiculous it was ! By this time it made no difference 
to Lord Erradeen that she had ever existed. Why should it 
make any difference to her that he had come and gone ? 1'hc 
new generation takes a view of such matter which is differ- 
ent from the old-fashioned sentimeiital view. After yielding 
to the new' influence rashly, unawares, like a romantic girl of 
any benighted centuryj Oona began to examine it like an en- 
lightened young intelligence of her oAvn. Her spirit rose 
against it, and tliat vigorous quality wdiich we call a sens(‘ 
or humor. There w^as something almost ludicrous in the 
thought that one intelligent creature should be thus subject 
to another, and that life itself should be altered by an acci- 
dental meeting. And if this Avas absurd to think of in any 
case, how' mucli more in her oAvn ? Nobody had ever had a 
more pleasant, happy life. In her perfect womanliness and 
submission to all the laws of nature, she Avas yet as inde- 
pendent as the most free-born soul could desire, d'here was 
no path in all the district, wdiether it led to the loneliest 
cottage or the millionaire’s palace, that Avas not free to Oona 


THE WIZARD'S SOM. 


. 

I'brresbev. The loch and the hilly were open as her mother’s 
garden, to the perfectly dauntless, modest creature, who had 
never in her life heard a tone or caught a look of disrespect. 
She went her mother’s errands, which were so often errands 
of charity, far and near, with companions when she cared for 
them, witiiout companions when she did not. What did 
it matter? The old cotter people about had a pretty 
(xaelic name for her; and to all the young ones Miss 
Oona of the Isle was as who should say Princess Oona, a 
young lady whom every one was bound to forward upon her 
way. Her mother was not so clever as Oona, which was, 
perhaps, a drawback ; but she could not have been more 
kind, more tender, more loving if she had possessed, as our 
Laureate says, “ the soul of Shakespeare.” All was well about 
and around this favorite of nature. How was it possible 
then that she could have come to any permanent harm in 
two or three days? 

Notwithstandijig this philosophical view, however, Oona 
did nothing aU that day, and to tell the truth felt little ex- 
cept the sense of vacancy; but next day she announced to 
her mother that she was going to the Manse to consult with 
Mr. Cameron about the Truach-Glas cotters, and that prob- 
ably she would see Mr. Shaw there, and be able to do the 
business Lord Erradeen had confided to her. Mrs. Forres- 
ter fully approved. 

“ A thing that is to make poor folks more comfortable 
should never be put off a moment,” that kind woman said, 
“ for,^ poor bodies, they have little enough comfort at the 
best,” and she stood at the porch and waved her hand to her 
child, as the boat sped out of the shade of the isle into the 
cold sunshine whicn had triumphed for an hour or two over 
the clouds and rain. Oona found Mr. Shaw as she had an- 
ticipated, in the village, and there was a very brisk and not 
altogether peaceable discussion in the minister’s study, over 
this new idea. The factor, though he was so strongly set 
against all severe measures, and in reality so much on the 
side of the cotters, was yet taken aback, as was natural, by 
the new idea presented to him. He laughed at the notion bi 
making them the owners of their little holdings.. 

.“Why not give Tom Patterson his farm too? He finds 
it lust as hard to pay the rent,” he cried in mingled ridicule 
and wrath. ‘ There is no difference in the principle though 
there may be in the circumstances. And what if Lord Er- 
radeen had a few hunched, crofters instead of half-a-dozen ? 
I m speaking of the principle. Of course he cannot do it. 
It s all entaileci, every inch of the land, and he camiot do it ; 
but supposing he could, and that he were treating them all 
equally ? It s just not to lie done. It is just shifting the dif- 
jiculty. It IS putting other people at a disadvautage. A maq 


THE W/ZARHS SON. 


179 

cannot give away his land and his living. It is just a thing 
that is not to be done.” 

“ He knows it is not to be done ; he knows it is entailed, 
therefore ” 

“ Oh yes, Miss Oona ; therefore—” cried the factor. “ Lit 
tie of it, very little would have come his way if it had not 
been entailed. Whether or not it is good for the country, 
there can be no doubt it’s the stronghold of a ffiiniJy. Very 
likely there would have been no Methvens (and sinall dam 
age, begging his pardon that is a kind of a new stock), and 
certainly there would have been no property to keep up a 
title, but for the entail. It is a strange story, the story of 
them altogether.” Shaw continued, “It has been a wonder- 
fully managed property. I must say that for it ; no praise to 
me, so I am free to speak, d here was the late lord— the only 
one I knew. There was very little in him, and yet the way 
he managed was wonderful ; they have just added land to 
land, and farm to farm. I do not understand it. And now 
I suppose we’ve arrived at the prodigal that always appears 
some time in a family to make the hoards go.” 

“No, no,” said the minister, “you must not call the man 
a prodigal whose wish is to give to the poor.” 

“That* is all very well,” said Shaw^: “the poor, where 
there are half-a-dozen of them, are easily enough managed. 
Give them their land if you like (if it were not criminal to 
cut a slice out of an estate), it does not matter much : but if 
there were a hundred ? It is the principle I am thinking of. 
They cannot buy it themselves, and the State wdll not buy it 
for them, seeing they are only decent Scots lads, not blazing 
Irishmen. I cannot see where the principle will lead to; t 
am not against the kindness, Miss Oona, far from that: and 
these half-a-dozen Frasers, what would it matter; but if 
there were a hundred ! The land is just my profession, as 
the Church is Mr. Cameron’s, and 1 must think of it, all the 
w'ays of it; and this is a thing that would not work so far as 
I can see.” 

“But Lord Erradeen acknowledges that,” said Oona. 
“ What he wants to do is only for his time. To set them 
Tree of the rent they cannot pay, and to let them feel that 
nobody can touch them, so long as he lives ” 

“ And the Lord grant him wealth of days,” said the min- 
ister ; “ a long life and a happy one ! ” 

“ You will not look at iv’ cried the factor, “from a com- 
mon-sense point of view. All that is very pretty, and pleas- 
ing to the young man’s— what shall I call it?— his kindness 
and his vanity, for both are involved, no doubt. But it will 
just debauch the minds of the people. They will learn to 
think they have a right to it ; and when the next heir comes 
into possession, there will be a burning question raised up, 
and a bitter sense of wrong if he asks for nis o-wn again. Gli 


i8o 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


yes, Miss Oona. so long as the present condition of affairs 
lasts it will be nis own. A man with a rent of two or three 
pounds is just as liable as if it were two or three hundred. 
The principle is the same ; and as 1 am saying, if there were 
a number of them, you just could not do it : for I suppose 
you are not a commmiist. Miss Oona, that would do away 
with property altogether ? ” 

A sudden smile from among the clouds lit up Shaw’s rud- 
dy, remonstrative countenance, as he put this question, and 
Oona smiled too. 

“ 1 don’t make any theories,” she said ; “ 1 don’t under- 
stand it. I feel as Lord Erradeen does, that whatever the 
law may be, I would rather be without a roof to shelter my- 
self than turn one poor creature out of her home. Oh, 1 don’t 
wonder, when I remember the horror in his face I Think ! 
could you sleep, could you rest— you. young and strong, and 
well on, when you had turned out tne pool' folk to the hill ? 
—all for a little miserable money ? ” cried Oona, starting to 
her feet, “ or for the principle, as you call it V I, for one,” 
cried the girl, with flashing eyes, “ would never have let him 
speak to me again.” 

“ There you have it, Oona ; there’s a principle, if you like ; 
there is something that will work,” cried the old minister, 
with a tremulous burst of laughter. “ J ust you keep by that, 
my bonnie dear, and all your kind ; and we’ll hear of few 
evictions within the Highland line.” 

“ That would be all very well,” said the factor, “ if every 
landlord was a young lad, like Lord Erradeen ; but even then 
it might be a hard case, and Miss Oona would not find it as 
easy as she thinks ; for supposing there were hundreds, as 
I’m always saying: and supposing there were some among 
them that could iust pay well enough, but took advanta^ ; 
and supposing a landlord that was poor too, and was losing 
everything? No, no, Miss Oona, in this world things are 
not so simple. My counsel is to let them be— just to let them 
be. I would bid them pay when they can. and that my lord 
would not be hard upon them. That is wliat I would do. I 
would tell them he was willing to wait, and maybe to for- 
give them what was past, or something like that. After 
what happened the other day, they will be very sure he will 
not be hard upon them. And that is what I would advise 
him to do.” 

“ You are not going to wash your hands of it, after all ? " 
the minister said. 

Shaw laughed. “ Not just this time, Mr. Cameron. 1 al- 
ways thought he was a fine lad. And now that he has good 

advisers, and amenable ” he added, with a glance at 

Oona, which fortunately she did not see. 

She had made up her mind to go un to the Glen and con- 
vey the good news to the cotters, and though it was not svu u 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


i8l 

entire good news as she wished, and Oona was somewhat 
disappointed, she paid them the visit notwithstanding, and 
gave the wonaen to understand that there was nothing 
to fear from Lord Err adeem It was a long walk, and the 
afternoon was almost over when Oona came once more in 
sight of the loch. To get there the sooner, she took a path 
which cut off a corner, and which communicated, by a little 
narrow byway leading through the marshy ground at the 
head of the loch, with the old castle. She was a little startled 
as she hurried along, to see some one advance, as if to meet 
her from this way. Her heart jumped with a momentary 
idea that the slim dark figure against the light in the west, 
was Lord Erradeen himself come back. But another glance 
satisfied her that this was not so. She was surprised but 
not at all alarmed ; for there was no one within reach of 
Loch Houran of whom it was possible to imagme that Oona 
could be afraid. She was singularly moved, however, she 
could not tell why, w hen she perceived, as they approached 
each other, that it was the same person w ho had come two 
nights before with the boat from Auchnasheen, and who had 
sought Walter on the isle. It had been too dark then to distin- 
guish his features clearly, and yet she wais very sure that it 
was he. In spite of herself, her heart beat at this encounter. 
She did not know what or wiio he was ; but he was Walter's 
enemy and taskmaster, or so at least it was evident Lord 
Erradeen thought. She felt a nervous feeling steal over her 
as he came tow^ards her, w’ondering w-ould he speak to her, 
and w^hat he w'ould say. She did not, indeed, know’ him, 
having seen him only under such circumstances, but she 
could not keep tlie consciousness that she did know him out 
of her face. It was with a still stronger throb of her heart 
that she saw he meant to claim the acquaintance. 

“Good evening,” he said, taking off* his liat, “I have not 
had the advantage of being presented to you, 3fiss Forrester, 
but we have met ” 

“Yes,” she said, with a momentary hesitation and falter- 
ing. She had so strong an impulse iii her mind to turn and 
flee, that her amazement with lierself was unbounded, and 
w^as indeed stronger than the fear. 

“I hope,” lie said, “ that nothing I have done or said has 
made you— afraid to meet me on this lonely road ? ” 

This stirred up all Gona’s pride and resolution. “I know 
no reason,” she said, “ why I should be afraid to meet any one, 
here or elsewhere." 

“ Ah, that is w’ell,” said the stranger ; “ but,” he added, “ let 
me tell you there are many reasons why a young lady so 
well endowed by nature as yourself might be timid of meet- 
ing a person of whom she knows nothing. Lord Erradeen, 
ffu* instance, over whom you w'ere throwing a shield of pro- 
tection when 1 saw’' you last.” 


i 82 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


Oona felt her .thrill of nervous disquietude gwe way to 
irritation as he spoke. She restrained with difficulty the 
impulse to answer hastily, and said after a moment, * I am 
at home here : there is no one who would venture, or who 
wishes, to do me harm.” ^ ^ . 

“ Harm ! ” he said ; “ do you think it no harm to claim your 
interest, and sympathy, and help, and then without a thought 

to hurry away ? ” „ . i i i ^ i • 

“I do not know who you are,” said Oona looking into his 

.face, “that ventures to speak to me so.” 

“ No ; you don’t know who I am. I am— one of his family, 
said the stranger. “ I have his interest at heart— and yours 
to a certain extent. I mean to make him rich and great, if 
he does as I say— but you are inciting him to rebellion . I 
know women Miss Forrester. I know what it means when 
they foster benevolence in a young man, and accept commis- 
sions of charity.” • . , . , 

Oona colored high with indignation and anger, but she 
was too proud to make any reply. The involuntary excite- 
ment, too, which had taken possession of her, she could 
not tell why, took away her breath. She was not afraid of 
the stranger, but it was irksome beyond description to her 
to see him stalk along by her side, and she quickened her 
pace in ^ite of herself. He laughed softly when he saw 
this. “ You begin to think,” he said, that it is not so certain 
you will meet with no one who can do you harm.” 

“ Do you mean to harm me ? ” she said looking more closely 
in his faice. 

“ You have a fine spirit,” he replied. “What a pity then 
that you are harmed already, and such a vacancy left in your 
life.”' 

The girl started and her heart began to beat wildly. She 

began “ How do you ” and then stopped short, fluttered and 

out of breath, not knomng what she said. 

“ How’ do 1 know ? You have meddled in a life that does 
not concern you, and you will have to pay the penalty. After 
you have executed his commission, how blank everything 
will be ! The past will not come back— it never comes back. 
You will stay on your isle, and look for him, and he will 
never come. The ground has gone from under your feet — 

you are emptied out ” He laughed a little as he spoke, 

hot malignantly, but as a not unfriendly eavesdropper might 
do who had heard some ridiculous confession. To have her 
own thoughts thus turned over before her filled her with 
strange dismay. She had no power to make any reply. 
Though there was no definite alarm in her mind, her panic 
gained upon her. She tried to say something, but the words 
would not come. The slight trembling which she could not 
conceal seemed to mollify her strange companion. 


THE WIZARDS SON, • 183 

‘‘ I have no wish to hurt you,’’ he said iu a lofty lone* 
“ What is done is done : but take care how you do more.” 

“ I will take no care,” cried Oona, with a flash of sudden 
power. *‘1 will do what is right, what I think right, and if 
I suffer it will be at my own pleasure. What I do can 
be nothing to you.” As she spoke the panic which she had 
been struggling against overcame her powers of resistance 
wholly. She gathered up her dress in her hand and flew 
with the speed in which, for a short distance, a girl cannot 
be surpassed. But as she got out of the immediate oppres- 
sion of this stranger’s presence, her spirit returned to hei- 
with a sense of defiance and opposition which was almost 
gay. She looked back, and called out to him with a voice 
that rang like a silver trumpet, “ Good-by— good-night ! ” 
waving her hand as she flew along. The dark figure ad- 
vancea not a step further, but stood still and watched, al- 
most hivisible himself against the (juickly darkening back- 
ground of the brushwood and the distance, the dim hills and 
gathering night. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

It would be difficult to describe the sensations with 'which 
Lord Erradeen found himself set at liberty, and on his way 
liack, as he thought at first, to the easy mind, the quiet life, 
the undisturbed and undisturbing circumstances of his pre- 
vious existence. He scarcely seemed to breathe till he had 
crossed the Border, and was outside of Scotland, feeling dur- 
ing that time, like a fugitive in full flight, incapable of 
thinking of anything except that he had eluded his pursuers 
and had escaped all possible risks and apprehensions. His 
trial had lasted days and nights, he could not tell how many. 
Xow for the first time he had the calm, the leisure, the sense 
of safety, which were necessary for a review of all that he had 
gone through ; he had seen the moon light up the pale line 
of the sea at Berwick, where Tweed falls into the waste of 
water, and the lights of Newcastle, turning into a shining 
highway the dark crescent of the Tyne, and then as the train 
bounded along through the darkness, with the throb and 
swing of life and speed, through the silence and night, his 
faculties seemed to come back to him, and his judgment to 
be restored. Through what a strange episode of existence 
had he passed since he saw the lights curve romid the sides 
of that river, and the great bridge striding over above the 
roofs of the sleeping town! And now he had escaped— had 
he escaped? He had time at least and quiet to think it all 
out and see where he stood. r 1 

He had been for nearly three weeks altogether on Loch 


THE IVrZARDK^ SON. 

Houran, during which time he had gone through the severest 
mental struggle he had ever known. It seemed years to mm 
now since the moment when he had been suddenly confronted 
by the strange and mysterious personage who had assumed 
a tone towards him and claimed a submission ^/hlch \\ alter 
had refused to yield. That this man’s appearance had awak- 
ened in him a sensation of overwhelming excitement mingled 
with fear, that he had come in an unaccountable way, that 
lie had been seen apparently by no one in the old castle but 
liimself, that nobody had betrayed any consciousness of 
knowing who he was or why he was there, and yet th^t he 
liad come and gone with a perfect acquaintance and famil- 
iarity with the place, the family, the estates, the story ot the 
race'; these were details which, with a tremulous sensation 
in his mind, as of a panic nearly over, he gathered together 
to examine and find out, if possible, what they meant. He 
had been unable during the time that followed, when he had 
taken refuge in Auclmasheen, to exercise any discriminating 
faculty, or use his own judgrhent upon these facts. At the 
moment of seeing and hearing occurrences which disturb 
the mind, reason is hampered in its action. Afterwards you 
may ask yourself, have you really heard and seen ? hut not 
when a definite appearance is before your eyes, or likely to 
re-appear at any moment, mid a distinct voice in your ears. 
The actual then overmasters the soul; the meaning of it 
must be got at later. He had seen this man whose faculties 
and pretensions were alike so extraordinary, he had listened 
to the claim he made, he had been bidden to yield up his in- 
dividual will and to obey under threatening of evil if he re- 
fused, and promises of pleasure and comfort if he consented. 
And Walter had said “ No.” He would have said No had an 
angel out of heaven appeared before him, making the same 
demand. He had been subjected to this strange trial at the 
very height of independence and conscious power, when he had 
newly begun to feel his own importance, and to enjoy its ad- 
vantages. It had seemed to him absurd, incredible that such 
a claim should be made, even while the personality of the 
strange claimant had filled him with a sensation of terror, 
which he summoned all his forces to struggle against, with- 
out any success. He had been like two men during that 
struggle. One a craven, eager to fly, willing to promise any- 
thing might he but escape ; the other struggling passionately 
against the stranger and refusing— refusing, night and day. 
When he went to Auchnasheen the character of the eonflict 
'within him had become more remarkable still. The man who 
claimed his obedience was no longer visible, but he had been 
rent asunder between the powers of Ins own resisting spirit 
and some strange infiuence which never slackened, ^\'hich 
seemed to draw him towards one point with a force which 
his unwillingness to yield made into absolute agony. Still, 


THE WfZARHS SON, 


^85 

he had l esisted, always resisted, though without stren^'th t(r 
escape, until the moment had come wlien ])y sudden insv>ira- 
tion of natural justice and pity he had hrokmiloose— by that, 
and by the second sold struggling- in him and with him, by 
Oona’s hand holding him and her heart sustaining hiiii. 
This was the history of these two tremendous wecKs, the 
most eventful in his life. And now he had escaped out of the 
neighborhood in which he could feel no safety, out of the in- 
fluence which had moved him so strangely, and was able to 
think and ask himself what it was. 

The night was dark, and, as has been said, tlie moon was 
on the wane. She shed a pale mist of light over the dark 
country, where noiv and then there broke out the red glow' 
of pit or furnace fires. The train swung onward with a rock 
of movement, a ploughing and plunging, the dim light in the 
roof swaying, the Uvo respectable fellow-passengers each in 
his corner, amidst his wraps, slumbering uneasily. Walter 
had no inclination to sleep. He was indeed feverishly 
awake ; all his faculties in wild activity : his mind intensely 
conscious and living. What did it all mean? The events 
which had affected him to a passionate height of feeling with 
which his previous life had been entirely unacquainted— was 
it possible that there was any other way of accounting for 
them ? To look himself in the face as it were, and confess 
now at a distance from these influences that the man to 
whom he had spoken in the language of to-day was one of 
the fabulous men in whom the ignorant believe, his own early 
ancestor— the still existing, undying founder of the house, 
was, he said to himself, impossible. It could not be ; any- 
thing else— any hypothesis was more credible than this. 
There was no place for the supernatural in the logic of life as 
he had learned it. Now that he had recovered control of 
himself, it was time for him to endeavor to make out a rea- 
son for the hallucination in which he had almost lost him- 
self and his sober senses. And accordingly he began to do 
it ; and this is what he said to himself. His imagination had 
been excited by all that had happened to him ; the extraordi- 
nary change in his circumstances which seemed almost mi- 
raculous, and then the succession of incidents, the strange 
half-communications that had been made to him, the old, 
ruinous house in which he had been compelled to shut him- 
self up, the wonderful solitude, full of superstitious sugges- 
tions, into which he had been plunged. All these details Iiad 
prepared his mind for something— he knew not wliat. He 
lelt a hot flush of shame and moi tilication come over liiiu jis 
he remembered how easily, notwithstanding all his better 
knowledge, he, a man of his century, acquainted with all the 
philosophies of the day, had been overcome by these influences, 
He had expected something out of nature, something terribh‘ 
and wonderful. And when such a state of mind is reached, 


i86 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


it is certain (he thought) that something will arise to take ad- 
vantage of it. Probably all these etfects had been calculated 
by upon the individual, whoever he was, who haunted Kinloch 
Ilouran to excite and exploit these terrors. ^\nio was he? Even 
now, so far out of his reach, so emancipated from his influence 
that he could question and examine it, Walter felt a certain 
giddiness come over his spirit at this thought, and was glad 
that one of his fellow-passengers stirred and woke, and made 
a shivering remark. How cold it was, before he again com- 
posed himself to sleep. It was very cold. There w^as an i(:y 
chill in the air which penetrated through the closed window's. 
But nothing else could -ome in— nothing else ! and it 
could be but a sudden reflection from his past excitement 
that made W alter feel for a moment as if another flgure sat 
opposite to him, gazing at him with a calm sarcasm, and eyes 
that had a smile in them. When the giddiness passed oft’, 
and he looked again, thero was (of course) no one opposite to 
him, — only the dark blue cushions of the unoccupied place. 
Who wasThis man then who held a sort of court in Kinlock 
Hour an, and demanded obedience from its proprietor ? He 
w^as no creature of the imagination. Excited nerves and 
shaken health might indeed have prepared the mind of the 
visitor for the effect intended to be produced upon him ; but 
they could not have created the Cv htral flgure— the powerful 
personality from w'hom such influence flowed. Who was he ? 
The circumstances were ah favorabh for a successful impos- 
ture, or even a mystification. Suppose it to be some meniber 
of the family aggrieved fly the promotion of a far-off branch, 
some dependent with co much knowledge of the secrets of 
the race as to be able to play upon the imagination of a nov- 
ice, with mysterious threats and promises ; perhaps, who could 
tell, a monomaniac, the leading idea of \7n0se delusion was to 
take this character upon him ? Walter’s breast lightened a 
little as he made out one by one these links of explanation. 
It w^as characteristic of his time, and thfe liberality of mind 
w'ith which modern thought abjures the idea of absolute im- 
posture, that the sudden suggestion of a monomaniac gave a 
great relief and^comfort to him. Tliat might explain all —a 
man of superior powers crazed in this point, wdio might have 
convinced himself that he was the person he claime’d to be, 
and that it was the interest of the family he had at heart. 
Such a being, acquainted with all the mysterious passages 
and hiding-places that exist in such old houses, able to appear 
suddenly from a secret door dr sliding panel, to choose mo- 
ments when nature herself added to the sense of mystery, 
hours of twilight and darkness when the half-seen is more 
alarming than anything fully revealed— this would exp»lain 
so much that the young man for the moment drew^ a long 
breath of relief, and felt half-consciously that he could afford 
to ignore the rest. 


THE WIZARD'S SOM. 


187 

Aiid in the sense of this relief he fell asleep, and dreamed 
that he stood again at Mrs. Forrester’s door in the Isle, and 
saw the light on the old tower of Kuiloch Hoiiran, and felt 
tile attraction, the drawuig and dragging as of some force he 
could not resist ; and woke up with the blow he gave him- 
self against the rail that supported the nettuigon the opposite 
side of the carriage, against which he struck his head in his 
rush toward the place to which he had felt himself called. 
He staggered back into his seat, giddy and faint, yet thankful 
to feel that it was only a dream ; and then had to begin his 
self-argument over again, and trace once more every link of 
the chaui. A monomaniac— yes, that mi^ht be the explana- 
tion ; but whence then that power which drew him, which 
he had fought against with all the powers of his being at 
Auchnasheen, which he had never given in to, but which, 
even in the reflection of it given in liis dream, was vi^dd 
enough to awaken him to a new oraneh of the question, 
Magnetism, mesmerism, he had heard of, and scorned as 
other names for charlatanism ; but when you are searching 
anxiously for the means of accounting for mysterious pheno- 
mena you are glad to seize upon explanations that at another 
moment would be little satisfactory. W alter said to himself 
that the madman of Kinloch Houran— the monomanic, must 
]X)ssess these strange powers. He might know many secrets, 
though his wits were gone astray. He might be sane enough 
to have a purpose, and to cultivate every possible means of 
affecting the mind he wished to work upon. Such curious 
combinations of madness and wisdom w^ere not beyond 
human experience. Perhaps at the end of all his arguments, 
having fully convinced himself, the thread of the reasoning 
escaiied him. for he suddenly shuddered and grew pale, and 
shrank into nis corner, drawing his wu’aps close round him 
and raising the collar of his coat to his veiy eyes, as if to 
shut out some bewildering, overwhelming sight. But hy 
this time the wintry day v/as breaking, and the stir of 
a weakened life reached the other travellers, who w^oke and 
stretched themselves, shivering in the chill of the dawn, and 
began to prepare for their arrival. One of them spoke to 
Walter, expressing a fear that he was ill, he looked so pale, 
and offering his seiwices to “ see him home.” The young 
man indeed felt as if he had come through a long illness 
wiien he stepped forth u}>on the platform at King’s Cross, 
and felt that he had escaped from his fever and his trouble, 
and had new ways and new thoughts or rather the repose 
(ff old thoughts and old ^vays— before him for some time to 
(‘ome. 

He remained in Loudon all day, and after his bath and 
his breakfast, felt the rismg of a new life, and began to re- 
member all the good things which he had partially forgotten, 
but wliich surely were more than enough to counterbalance 


THE WTZARHS^ SON. 


llie evil things, of which, when you set your mind to it, after 
all, so feasible an explanation could be found. London was 
at its darkest, and nothing invited him in the foggy and 
murky streets ; nevertheless he lingered with that mixture 
of old habit and mental indolence which wastes so much 
time and disperses so many admirable resolutions. He went 
in the morning to see the house which belonged to him 
in Park Lane, and which was empty for the moment. It 
Avas one of those whicli look out from pleasant, large bow- 
Avindows upon the brightness of the Pai'k and the cheerful 
thoroughfare. Ea^cii at such a moment it had a kind of 
brightness— as much light as could be got in London. It 
gave alter a real pleasure to think of furnishing it for his 
mother, of seeing her take her place there and enter upon a 
larger life, a. mode of existence for Avhich he felt— Avith a 
gloAV of pride in her — she Av^as more qualified than for the 
smaller village routine at Sloebury. Ilis energy even Avent 
so far as to direct that the house should be put in order and 
prepared for occupation. And if he had gone home at once 
after tliis feat, not all the threatenings of his mysterious 
enemy Avould have prevented a pleasant re-beginning of his 
ohl life. But he did not ; he lingered about the streets, about 
the hotel to Avhich he had gone in the morning, for no partic- 
ular reason, and it Avas late when he started for Sloebury— 
late and dark and cold, and his sleepless night and all the 
excitements from which he had fled, began to tell upon 
him. When he reached the familiar station his cheer- 
fulness and good-humor had fled. And all the pleasant an- 
ticipations of the home-coming and the comfort Avith AAdiich 
he had remembered that existence, free of all mystery, 
in Avhich he had seldom done anvthing but AAliat seemed 
good in his oavii eyes, abandoned him as he stepped into the 
drizzle of a dark and I’ainy December night, into the poor 
and laadly-lighted streets that surrounded a raihvay everA^- 
AA'here, and turn the AA^orst side of every toAvn to the eyes of 
strangers. He sent Symington and Ins baggage off before 
Inm, and himself set out to Avalk, Avith that incomprehensible 
pleasure in a little further delay AAdiich is so general. Step- 
ping out into the mean streets had all the effect upon 
Walter’s tired frame and capricious and impatient mind, of 
sudden disenchantment. His imagination perhaps had been 
affected by the larger atmosphere from AAdiich he had come, 
and he had forgotten the dinginess and poverty, AAdiich never 
before had struck him Avith the same force. The damp driz- 
zle AATich was all there Avas for air, seemed to suffocate him ; 
the pavement Avas Avet and muddy, dirt and AAwetchedness 
pervaded everything. Then he began to realize, as he 
AA^alked, the scene he Avas going to, Avhich he could call up 
before him Avith such perfect distinctness of memory. 
Home ! It used to be the centre, in books, of all pleasant 


THE WrZARHS SOH. 


189 

thoughts— the tired wanderer eoming to rest and shehe]-, 
the prodigal out of hunger and misery to forgiveness and the 
fatted calf, the “ war-beaten soldier ” from his cold sentry’s 
march, the sailoj’ from the wet shrouds and gloomy seas— to 
good fires and welcomes, kisses and a hot supper. But that 
primitive symbol of imagination, like so many otliers, has 
got perhaps somewhat soiled with ignoble use ; and it never 
was, perhaps, from this point of view that young men of 
AValter jMethven’s type regarded the centre of family life, to 
vdiich they returned when there was nothing better to do. 
with a sort of penitential sense of the duties that were 
considered binding there, and the preposterous things that 
^v'ould be expected of them. 

Lord Erradeen, who had been longing for that safe and 
sensible refuge where no exaggeration or superstition pre- 
vailed, suddenly felt it rise before him like a picture of still 
life as he walked towards it. His mother seated knitting at 
<me side of the fire, with a preoccupied look, listening for his 
step outside, the evening newspape]*, and a novel from 
Mudie’s on the table. Miss Merivale opposite working crewel 
work, ajid putting a question now and then as to when he 
was expected ; the two lamps burning steadily, the tick of 
the clock in the foreground, so to speak, the soul of tlie silent 
scene. The other accessories of the piece were all conven- 
tional ones ; fire blazing brightly, noAvand then breaking into 
the monologue of the clock with a sudden rush and jet of 
flame, or dropping of ashes ; curtains drawn, sofas and chairs 
v'ithin the glow of the Avarmth, ready for the iicav comer’s 
choice. There would be a sudden springing iq), a disturb- 
ance of the perfect order of all these arrangements, on his 
entrance, lie AA^ould be made to sit doAvn in far too Avarni a 
corner ; his personal appearance AA^ould be commented upon : 
that he AA'as looking well, or ill, or tired, or as fresh as pc s- 
sible. And then the cross-examination would begin. Wal- 
ter reminded himself that this cross-examinntion was mad- 
dening, and that e\^en as a boy at school he had never been 
able to bear it. When he had said that he was Avell, and 
consented, yes, that he had come home sooner than he ex- 
pected, but no, that nothing AA^as AATong, what AA as there more 
to say ? To be sure he had intended to say a great deal 
more, to pour forth all his troubles into his mother's sym- 
pathetic bosom ; but that in any case could only huA^e been 
AAdien the tAvo Avere alone. ^Vnd Avould she understand him 
if he did so ? (’ousin Sophy— he could hear her in imagina- 
tion— Avould give a sharp shriek of laughter at the idea of 
anything mysterious,at any suggestion of the su]')ernatural (in 
Avliich,oi course, by this time Walter did not belieA^e himself, 
but that was another matter). She AA'ould shriek e\"en deri- 
siA'elY at 'the idea that mesmerism could Inwe affected any 
man in his senses. And his mother— Avbat should she do ? 


190 


THE WIZARD'S SORT. 


not shriek with laughter, that was not her way ; but smile 
perhaps with a doubtful look to see whether it was possible 
that he could be in earnest in this incredible story of his. 
Ko, she would not believe him, she would think he was un- 
der the influence of some hallucination. She would look at 
him with a shock of something like contempt, an annoyed 
dismay that her son should be so incredulous, or so weak. 
Walter’s imagination leaped back to the other wann and 
softly lighted room on the Isle, the iimocent jnother talking, 
who would have believed everything, the girl standing by 
who did understand, and that almost without a word. Ah, 
if that indeed were home ! Thus Avith a sudden revulsion 
in his mind, shutting himself up, and double-locking the door 
of his heart— even before he had come to the door of the 
house, to which his mother, he knew, would rush to meet 
him, hearing and distinguishing his step— he Avent home. 

Mrs. Methven Avho had been on the watch all day, oi)ened 
the door to him as he foresaw. She Avas trembmig with 
anxiety and pleasure, yet self-restrained and anxious not to 
betray the excitement Avhich probably he would think un- 
called for ; she took his Avraps from him, and helped to take 
off his great coat giving an aid which was quite unnecessarv, 
but Avhich he, on his side commanding himself also, did his 
best to accept Avith an appearance of pleasure. “You have 
not dined,” she said, “ there is something just ready. We 
waited half an hour, but I thought you would prefer to come 
by this train. Come in and get thawed, and let me look at 
you, while they bring up your diimer.^’ She took him by 
the arm as she spoke, and led him into the dra whig-room 
where everything was exactly as he had imagined. And she 
drew hm, as he had imagined, too close to the Are, and draw- 
ing the softest chair, said Sit down, dear, and get warm.” 

“lam not a bit cold. I hare walked, you know, from the 
station. How do rondo. Cousin Sophy? Your room is too 
Avarm, mother, I always tell you so. However, it looks verv 
cheerful after the Avet and mud outside,” he said Avith an at- 
tempt to be gracious. 

^ “ The rain makes everythmg dismal out of doors. Has it 
been raming all the Avay ? You have liad a dreadful iouimev 
mv poor boy.” ’ 

‘Of course it is warmer here than in Scotland,” said Iffiss 
Merivale. 


And then there was a pause, and his mother looked at 
him more closely by the light of the lamp. She Avas iust 
going to say, \ou are not looking very well ’’—when Wal- 
ter broke in. 

• I ^ear a tray coming, and I am very hungry. I shall go 
into the dmmg-room, mother, and join you by and by.” 

lAvill go too and wait upon you, Walter, f bean to 
wait upon you myself to-night. I hope your lordship has not 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


191 

grown too fine for that,” she said with an attempt at playful 
ease. It was a relief to leave Miss Merivale, and have hei* 
son all to herself . She- put his chair to the table for him, 
and brought the claret which had been warming, and handed 
him his plate with a smile of content. “ It is pleasant to 
serve one’s boy,” she said, “ and we don’t want any tiiird per- 
son. I have so much to hear and to ask ” 

An impatient prayer that she would not begin the mo- 
ment he sat down to worry a fellow with questions was on 
Walter’s lips ; but he forbore, doing his very best to com- 
mand himseli. To sit in his old place, to feel his old im- 
pulse, to find the claret too warm, and the potatoes cold, was 
almost too much for him ; but still like a hero he forboi-e. 
And she took advantage of his magnanimity. She never re- 
laxed her watch upon him. ^ That is the penalty one pays for 
having one’s mother to serve one; a sei-vant is silent at 
least. She asked him if he would not have a little more, 
iust this little piece which was very nicely done? Some of 
the vegetables which were better cooked than usual? A 
little salad ? Some stewed fruit with that Devonshire cream 
which he used to like ? A little of his favorite cheese ? She 
was not in general a fussy woman, but she was so anxious 
after the rapprochement that had taken place on the eve of 
his going away, to please him, to preserve that tenderer 
strain of feeling— if it could be done this way I And yet all 
the time she was restraining herself not to say too much, 
not to worry him. A woman has to exercise such wiles 
often enough for her husband’s benefit ; but it is hard to go 
through the process again for her son. 

He bore it all with a devouring impatiencCj yet self-re- 
straint too— not entreating her in words to let him alone for 
heaven’s sake! as he would so fain have done. Perhaps 
there was something to be said on his side also : his mind 
was laden with care and anxiety, and wanted repose abo\e 
all ; and this wistful over-anxiety, and desire to propitiate Ijy 
details was irritating beyond description. lie did not know 
how to put up with it. Love itself is sometimes very haid 
to put up with— embarrassing, officious, not capable of per- 
ceiving mat to let its object alone is the best. Mrs. Meth- 
ven did not know how to propitiate him— whether to show 
her interest or to put on a form of indifference. All her 
urgency about his dinner, was it not to spare him the ques- 
tions which she knew he did not love ? But that succeeded 
badly, and her curiosity, or rather her anxiety, was great. 

“How did you like Kinloch Houran?” she ventured to 
say at last. What a question ! It seemed to W alter that a 
glance at his face would have shown her how inappropriate 

Uke Kinloch Houran 1 ” he said. “ if you want a cate- 


192 


THE WIZAJW^S SON. 


gorical answei*, mother— and 1 know you are never satisfied 
with anything else— not at all ! 

“ I am sorry for that, Walter, since it seems a place you 
must have a great deal to do with. Auchnasheen, then, was 
that better? You must teach me to pronounce the name.” 

“ Auchnasheen, if possible, was worse,” he said. “ I shall 
never be able to endure either the one or the other, or forget 
the associations. Don’t make me think of them, please. 
When I got home 1 thought I should be able to escape all 
that.” 


‘‘My dear, I beg your pardon : J did not know. Was the 
weather then so bad ? They say it always rains— and the 
place very dull, of course, so far m the wilds ? But you said 
in your letter that the lake was lovely, and that tliere were 
some pleasant people^* — ” 

lie put up his hand, begging fier to go no further. ” It 
was lovely enough if you like, hut I hate the j lace; isn’t 
that enough? I shall never go bach with my free ^A'ill.” 

Mrs. Methven looked at him in astonishment. 1 


Thought—” she said, “you it member how fantastic you 
thought it, and mediaeval— that you had to make a periodical 
visit to the old home of the race?” 

Ills very lips trembled with irritation, lie had written 
about all that in the first days of his absence, and even after 
his arrival at Doch Houran, making fun of the old world 
stipulation. She might have divined, lie thought, that it 
was a very different matter noAv. “ I am sor-ry to keep you 
so long here, out of your own comfortable corner,” he said. 
“ You never like sitting in the cljningnc om. It is lirutal of 
me to keep you here.” 

“ No. Walter, it is my pleasure,” she cried ; then, poor 
soul, with that most uncalled-for, unprofitable desire for in- 
formation, “And there are so many things I want Mo 


He commanded himself with a ^reat eftoit. Mother, 
he said, “ I have not enjoved my visit to Scotland, there 
are a great many things that peihaps I may he able to talk 
of hereafter if you will giv-e me time, but that I don t want 
even to think of now. And I’m tired with my journey ; and 
. everything is not covleur de rotie., as you seem to think. Let 
me alone, if you can, for to-night.” 

“ Let yoii alone — if T nan ! ” She was so startled, so 
bitterly disappointed, that for a moment or two’ she could 
not speak. And this aggravated Walter still more. 

“ Mother,” he cried, getting up from his unsatisfactory 
meal, “ T hope you are not going to make a scene the first 
night.” 

Thus, without any intention, wdlh indeed the strongest 
desire to adopt a better way, this was how young TiOrd 
Erradeen resumed his intercourse with his mother. And 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


193 


yet Oona’s mother, with all her little gentle affectations, 
with her kind effusiveness which there was no withstanding, 
had given him the sincerest sense of home and a refuge from 
trouble. Was it Oona’s presence that explained all, or was 
there something more subtle underneath i There followed 
on this occasion no scene ; but w’hen Mrs. Methven returned 
to the' drawing-room alone, leavmg Walter, as she said, in 
peace to smoke his cigar after his dinner. Miss Merivaie’s 
keen eyes perceived at once that the traveller’s meal had not 
been a happy ceremonial. 

“ I daresay he is tired,” she said. 

“ Yes, he is tired — almost too tired to eat. Smoke is the 
grand panacea,” said Mrs. Methven, with a smile. 

“ The worst of smoke is that it is so unsociable,’’ said Miss 
Merivale, cheerfully, picking up her book. “ 1 think I’ll go 
to bed and leave you free for your talk with Walter when 
the cigar’s done. Oh yes, you wilV get on better by your- 
selves. You will get more out of him if you are alone. But 
I daresay you woirt get very much out of him. It wall come 
by scraps — a little at a time ; and ho will be quite astonished 
that you don’t know— by instinct, I suppose. Men are all 
like that.” 


It was very kind of Cousin Sophy. Mrs. ]Methven gave 
her a kiss of gratitude as she took her candle and went 
away. But the expedient after all did little good. Walter 
lingered over his cigar, grov/ing less and less inclined for 
any confidences, while his mother lingered hi the drawing- 
room, hopuig he would come to her ; and Cousin Sophy, by 
far the most comfortable of the three, established herself 
cosily in her easy chair by her bedroom fire, with a yelloiv 
novel. Miss Merivale had aspirations beyond Mudie. She 
thought the French writers far more subtle and searching 
in their analysis of clmracter than her compatriots ever 
were, and she liked their boldness, and the distinctness with 
which they cut away all pretences and showed humanity as 
it was. She had no opinion of humanity — but yet she was 
in lier way very good-natured, and would even go out of her 
way to show kmdness to one of her fellow-creatures, as she 
had done to-night. Though her own room looked comfortabler, 
and was so indeed up to a certain point. Miss Merivale, if no- 
body else, was aware that there was a draught which there 
was no eluding— a draught which, whatever you might do, 
caught you infallibly in the back of the neck. She had 
taken down the curtains and put them up again. She had 
changed the position of her seat. She had bought a folding 
screen. She had even changed her chair and procured a 
high-backed old-fashioned thing, something like that cush- 
ioned sentry-box in which porters delight ; but in no way 
could she escape this draught, except in bed, and it was 
much too early to go to bed. Therefore she had made a 


194 


THE WIZARD'S SON.. 


distinct sacrifice of personal comfort in coming so soon ni> 
stairs. She sat there and mused, asking herself what boys 
were born for, or at least by what strange mistake Provi 
dence ever committed them to the charge of women : and 
why it was that they could not be happy or natural with the 
people they belonged to. “ I feel almost sure now,” she said 
to herself, “ that 1 shall have a stift' neck to-morrow, to no 
purpose, and that those two downstairs are sitting in sepa- 
rate rooms, and will not say a word to each other.” 

It was a curious, very curious reachng of an English home, 
could any spectator have looked through the secure covering 
of that respectable roof, or through the curtains that veiled 
the windows, and seen the two rooms in which these two 
persons sat each alone. How was itV Why was it? The 
mother had no thought but for her son. The son was not 
unkind or heartless, but full of good qualities. And yet at a 
moment when he had much to tell, and she was eager to 
hear, they sat in two separate rooms, as if they were fellow- 
lodgers and no more. Cousin Sophy, who was a sensible 
woman, with much kind feeling towards both, though she 
was not perhaps the kind of person from whom any high 
degree of unselfish devotion was to be looked for, sat and 
shook her head, and “ wondered at it,” as the ladies at Came- 
lot did over Elaine. But it was a greater wonder than 
Elaine. 

Was it, perhaps, the beginning of the fulfilment of that 
threat that everything would go ill with him, which had 
been made at Kinloch Houran ? But if so it was no new ill, 
but only the further follo^ving out of an evil that had been 
growing for years. 


CHAPTER XX. 

Something of the same perversity which had turned all 
his good resolutions to nothing on the night of his arrival, 
affected Walter when he went out next morning into Sloe- 
bury. The place had narrowed and giwvn. small in every 
way. There was no horizon, only lines of brick houses ; no 
space, only the breadth of a street ; no air to breathe for a 
man who had come from the wide solitude of the hills, and 
the keen freshness of the Highland breezes. Everything 
here was paltry, and monotonous, and small ; the people 
who met him— and he met everybody, and there was not a 
man who could claim the slightest acquaintance with him, 
or a woman who had seen him once in her neighbor’s draw- 
ing-room who did not make some use of the acquaintance 
with Lord Erradeen— seemed to have dwindled along with 
the scene. They had never been distinguished by intelli- 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


195 


gence or originality, but he had not been aware how paltry 
they were before. Had he seen Jeremy’s new turn-out? all 
the men inquired of him. He had already heard of it from 
Miss Merivale, who had given him a sketch of the history of 
what had happened during his absence, at 
breakfast. It was a high phaeton “ which I suppose must be 
the lashion,” Miss Merivafe said. “ You should TeaUy see it,’’ 
cried all the young men, with details about the harness, and 
the high-stepping mare which were endless. What did tord 
Hrradeen care tor young Jeremy’s phaeton or the high- 
stepping mare . but it was the only topic at Sloebury— that, 
and a r^ort which Miss Merrivale had also furnished him 
with about Julia Herbert. “Your old flame: no doubt it 
was to console herself in your absence,” smd Cousin Sophy, 
riiis was di^greeable too. W alter did nor care to hear that 
uie girl who had distinguished himself and been distinguished 
by mm should make herself remarkable m a flirtation with 
mioUier man He did not want her indeed, but he objected 
to the transfer of her affections. And everything around 
looked so barren, stale, flat and unprofitable. Perhaps it 
was the quickening of life which his recent experiences, 
paintul though they had been, had brought him, which made 
himjeel how dead-alive everything was. At Loch Houran 
his mind had gone back to the safe and peaceable common- 
place of his native town with something like an enthusiasm 
of preference for its calm commonsense, and superiority to 
the fever and excitements of that life upon the edge of the 
supernatural. Now it seemed to him that superstition itself, 
not to speak of the heats and chills of human passion, were 
higher things than this C5mic steadiness, this limit of matter- 
of-fact. What would Sloebury think of those things that 
had been so real to' him, that had rent his very being as- 
under? He could imagine the inextinguishable laughter 
with which his story would be greeted^ and blushed at the 
possibility of betraying himself. A seer of ghosts and visions, 
a victim of mesmensm ! He would become in a moment the 
scorn, as he was at present the envy, of the town. Not a 
soul of them would understand. His experiences must be 
buried in his own bosom, and no one here must ever know 
that he had got beyond that surface of life to which all their 
knowledge was confined. When he met Underwood indeed 
this determination wavered a little : but then Underwood 
looked at him mth an eagerness of inspection which was 
still more offensive. What did the fellow mean ? Did he 
think it likely that he, a stranger, a person whom the better 
])eople disapproved, should be chosen as the confidant of 
Lord Erradeen? 

“You have come back very soon,” the captain said; as 
indeed did everybody whom he met. 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


196 

“No— not sooner than I intended,” said Walter, coldly. 
“ It was business merely that took me there at all.” 

Underwood examined his face with a curiosity that had 
knowledge in it. “I know that country so well,” he said. 
“ I should like to know what you think of it. Of course you 
were at Auchnasheen ? I have been weeks there, with the 
late lord— and at the old castle, too,” he added, with a keen 
look. 

“You were interested in the architecture, I suppose.” 

Underwood said nothing for a moment. Then suddenly 
— “ I wish you’d come and talk to me about it ! ” he cried. 
“ any time that you will come I’ll shut out everybody else. 
I’ll keep myself tree ” 

“My dear fellow,” Walter said in a supercilious tone, 
“ why should I make Sloebury pay the penalty, and banish 
your friends from you for my semsh advantage ? ” To re- 
member the time when this man had taken notice of him 
and been his superior, gave him a sense of impatient in- 
dignation. “ Besides, I don’t know that there is anything to 
say.” 

“Oh, as you please,” said Underwood; but when they 
passed each other, he turned back and laid a hand on Wai- 
ter’s sleeve. “ I keep early hours now,” he said. “ After ten 
I am always free.” 

Lord Erradeen walked away, half-angry, half-amused, by 
the man’s presumption, who, after all, was a nobody; but 
yet, he made a sqcret note in his mind, almost outside of his 
consciousness. After ten— It might, in the dreadful blank 
of those hours after ten at Sloebury (or even before ten for 
that matter), be a resource. 

He had not gone very much further when he fell into 
another lion s mouth. But how wrong, how cruel, to applv 
such a phrase to the red and smiling mouth, fresh as the 
cherries in the song, of Miss Julia Herbert, on her wav from 
the reotwy where she paid her old aunt a daily visit, 'to the 
cottage in \yhich she was her mother’s stay and solace ! She 
had been flirting a great deal in Walter’s absence, no one 
could deny. A young Wynn, a relation on the other side of 
the house, had been staying there, on leave from his regiment, 
and on such an occasion what else was there to do ? But 
young v\ ynn was gone, and his circumstances were not 
such a^ to have stood in competition for one moment with 
Lord Erradeen. As soon a^s she saw him, Julia began to 
smde and wave her hand. If there was a little sense of guilt 
m her, so much the more reason for even an excess of friend- 
liness now And perhaps there was in Walter a certain 
desire to let the little world about, which had insisted upon 
her little infldelities, perceive that she was as much under 
his influence as ever, as soon as he chose to appear. This 
was not the way m which the world regarded the matter, if 


THE WTZARHS SON, 


197 


Walter had known Instead of looking at him as the con- 
quering hero; who had but to show himself, the spectators 
said pityingly that Julia Herbert had got hold of poor Lord 
Erradeen agam. 

Oh, Walter ! ” she cried • then changed her tone with a 
very pretty blush, and said, “I ought to have said Lord 
iirradeen; but it was the surprise. And so you have come 
home ?” 


I have come 5ac^,” he said, with a little emphasis. 

I see It all. Forgive me that I should be so silly— 

01 course ; that means a few days, that means you have come 
tor your boxes, or to see your mother, or to know her wishes 
respecting the ncAV furniture of the banqueting hall. Shall 

It be mediaeval or renaissance ? If you ask my advice ” 

!! course, I do. It is for that chiefly I am here.” 

That IS what I thought. Renaissance, then. There, 
you have my opinion— with plenty of cupids and good, fat 
garlands ” 

She laughed, and Walter laughed too, though he was not 
very much amused. But, of course, he could not speak to a 
lady as he had spoken to tinder wood. 

“ Come now, tell me about it,” the young lady said. “ Ton 
cannot refuse such a little bit of novelty to one who never 
sees anything now except a novel ; and there is so little nov- 
elty in them! About what? Oh, about Scotland, and the 
scenery, and the old castle ; and whom you met, and what 
you did. Mayn’t I sIioav a little curiosity — in one whom,” 
she added with that exaggeration of sentiment which leaves 
room for a laugh, “ I have known all my life ? ” 

That, T hope, is not* all the claim I have on your inter- 
est,” said Walter in the same tone. 


“Oh, no, not half. Tliere have been moments !— And then 
the romance of you. Lord Erradeen ! It is delightful to 
touch upon the borders of romance. And youi^rank! I 
feel a great many inches higher, and ever so much elevated 
in my ovm estimation by being privileged to walk by your 
lordship’s side. When are you going to take your seat and 
help to rule your country ? They say the house of Commons 
is to be preferred for that. But there is nothing so delight- 
ful as a peer.” 

“ How lucky for me that you should think so. I may walk 
with you, then, to the ” 

“ Comer,” said Julia, “ not too far ; oh certainly not too 
far; or we shall have all the old ladies, male and female, 
making comments.” 

“I don’t care for the old ladies— or their comments,” 
said Walter ; the fun was languid, perhaps, but yet it af- 
forded a little occupation when one had nothing else to do. 

“You? Oh, of course not, as you will escape presently, 
and know all my wiles by heart already, it cannot make 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


198 

much difference to you. It is I who have to be consid- 
ered, if you please, my lord. They will say there is that Ju- 
lia Herbert at her old tricks, trying to take in poor Lord 
Erradeen— a poor innocent young man in the snares of that 
designing baggage. They will probably add that the police 
should put a stop to it,” Miss Herbert said. 

“ The deluded old ladies ! Without knowing it is exactly 
the other way ” 

‘‘ Now that is the prettiest speech you ever made,” said 
Julia. “1 never heard you saj^ anything so nice before. 
Vou must have been in very good society since you went ' 
away. Tell me, who was ity ” she asked with her most in- 
sinuating look. 

They were old practitioners both. They understood each 
other ; they had flirted since they had been in long clothes and 
no harm had ever come of it. This is, no doubt, what Miss 
Herbert would have said had any feminine critic interposed ; 
but there was something more serious, as the feminine crit- 
ic would have divined, at once, in Julia’s eye. She meant 
more, not less, than she said ; and she was anxious to know, 
having her eyes upon all contingencies like a wise general, 
what rivals might have come in the way. 

I have met scarcely any one,” said W alter. “Ton can- 
not conceive what a lonely place it is. Oh, of course there 
are people about. 1 was promised a great many visitors had 
I stayed. On the other hand, even in winter, it is wonder- 
fully beautiful. Coming back to this perfectly flat country, 
one discovers for the first time how beautiful it is.” 

“ Yes,” said Julia, indifferently ; the beauty of the country 
did not excite her. 1 have seen a photograph of your old 
castle. You can only get to it by water. Captain LTnderwood 
says. Oh, he has been a great authority on the subject since 
you went away. One of your castles is on Loch Houran ; but 
tlie others 

“ If you like to call them castles,” said W alter, gently 
flattered by these queries, “ There are two of them on Loch 
Houran. One I call a ruin, and the other a shooting box—” 

'' Oh, you lucky, lucky person ; and a house in town, and 
another grand place in Scotland ! Aren’t you frightened to 
trust .yourself among poor people who have nothing ? Don’t 
you feel alarmed lest we should rush at you, and tear you to 
pieces, and divide your spoils? I am very romantic. I 
should have the old castle,’’ she said, with a side glance of 
provocation and invitation. 

Her watchful eyes perceived a change in his countenance 
as she spoke. There were limits, it was evident, to the top- 
ics her flying hand might touch. She went on cleverly with- 
out a pause, — 

“You wonder what I should do with it? Restore it, 
Lord Erradeen. Build the walls up again, and make every- 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


199 

thin^ as it used to be. I should enjoy that— and then the 
furnishing, how delightful ! Don’t you know that the aim 
and object of every rational being now is to make a little 
Victorian house look like a big Queen Anne one ? or if not 
that, an Eastern harem with quantities of draperies, and 
mats and cushions. How much more delightful to have the 
real thing to work upon ! ” 

“ But my house is not a Queen Anne house, or an Orien- 
tal ” 

“ You don’t like to say the word, you good, delicate-mind- 
ed young man ! Of course not ; but a castle like the Myste- 
ries of (Jdolpho.. At all events you must ask mamma and 
me to pay you a visit, and I shall take my lute like Emily in 
that beautiful story, and a small but well-chosen collection 
of books ; and then whatever happens— supposing even that 
you shut my lover up in one of your dungeons ” 

“ Which I should certainly do ; nay, hang him on the gal- 
lows-hill.” 

“ISTo, no,” she said, “not hang him; let him have the 
death of a gentleman. Here we are at the corner. Oh, you 
are going my way? Well, perhaps that makes a difference. 
You meant to pay your respects to mamma ? I don’t think 
that I can in that case. Lord Erradeeii, interfere with the lib- 
erty of the subject ; for you have certainly a right, if you wish 
it, to call on mamma.” 

“ Certainly I have a right. I am prepared to obey you in 
every other respect ; but Mrs. Herbert has always been very 
kind to me, and it is one of my objects ” 

“ How much improved you are ! ” cried .Tulia. “ How 
nice you are ! How grateful and condescending ! Tell me 
whoni you have been consorting with while you have been 
away. The Scotch have good maimers, I have always heard. 
Who is your nearest neighbor in your old castle. Lord Erra- 
deen?” 

Walter cast about in his mind for a moment before he re- 

E lied. He had no mind to profane the sanctity of the isle by 
etraying its gentle inmates to any stranger’s curiosity. He 
said— “1 think my nearest neighbor is a Mr. Williamson— 
not a distmguished name or person— who has a gorgeous 
great house and everything that money can buy. That means 
a great deal. It has all been made by sugar, dr some equally 
laudible production.” 

“ And Mr. Williamson— no, it is not distinguished as names 
go— has a daughter. Lord Erradeeii ? ” 

“ I believe so. Miss Herbert.” 

“ How solemn we are ! It used to be Julia— and Walter. 
But never mind, when one gets into the peerage one changes 
all that. ‘ One fair daughter, and no more, whom he loved 
passing well ! ’ ” 

“There is but one, I think; sons in an indefinite number, 


300 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


however, which lessens I suppose, in a commercial point of 
view, the value of the lady.” 

“ Lord Erradeen, you till me with amazement and horror. 
If that is how you nave been taught by your Scotch neigh- 
bors- — ” 

“ Miss Herbert, I am following the lead you have given 
me— trying humbly to carry out your wishes.” 

And then they looked at each other, and laughed. The 
wit was not of a high order, but perhaps that is scarcely ne- 
cessary to make a duel of this kind between a young man 
and a young woman amusing. It was more than amusing to 
Julia. She was excited, her bosom panted, her eyes shone— 
all the more that Walter’s calm was unbroken. It was pro- 
voking beyond measure to see him so tranquil, so ready to 
respond and follow her lead, so entirely unlikely to go any 
further. He was quite willing to amuse himself, she said to 
herself, but of feeling qn the matter he had none, though 
there had been moments ! And it did not once occur to her 
that her antagonist was clever enough to have eluded her in- 
vestigations, or that the smile upon his face was one of secret 
pleasure in the secret sanctuary whose existence he had 
revealed to no one — the little isle in the midst of Loch Houran 
and the ladies there. He went back to them Avliile all this 
livelv babble went on, seeing them stand and wave their 
hands to him, as he was carried away over the wintry water. 
He had come away with relief and eagerness to be gone; but 
how fair it all looked as he turned back out of this scenery 
so different from his loch, and from the side of a girl who 
wanted to “catch” hinij Walter knew. Odious words! 
which it is a shame to think, much less speak, and yet which 
are spoken constantly, and alas ! in some cases, are true. 

Notwithstanding this lively consciousness of tlie young 
lady’s meaning (wdiich in itself is always flattering and pro- 
riitiates as much as it alarms), Walter accompanied Julia 
very willingly to the cottage. He had not thought of going 
there so soon. It was a kind of evidence of interest and 
special attraction which he had not meant to give, but that 
did not occur to him at the moment. The mother and daugh- 
ter exerted themselves to the utmost to make his visit agree- 
able. They insisted that he should stay to luncheon, they 
sang to him and made him sing, and talked and made him 
talk, and burned delicate incense before him, with jibes and 
flouts and pretences at mockery They had the air of laugh- 
ing at him, yet flattered him all the time. He was sucli a 
prize, so w-ell worth taking a little trouble about. The in- 
cense tickled his nostrils, though he laughed too, and 
believed that he saw through them all the time. There Avas 
no deception, indeed, on either side; but the man w^as be- 
guiled and the woman excited. He w^ent away with certain 
fumes in his brain, and she came dowm from the little domes- 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


20t 


tic stage upon which she had been performing with a sense 
of exhaustion, yet success. Miss Williamson, a country 
beauty, or perhaps not even a beauty, with red hair and a 
Scotch accent, and nothing but money to recommend her ! 
Money was much to ordinary mortals, but surely not enough 
to swe^ away all other considerations from the mind of a 
young 'favorite o:^ fortune. No ! Julia believed in a certain ge- 
nerosity of mind though she was not herself sufficiently well 
off to indulge in it, and she could not think that money 
important as it was, would carry the day.' 

In the meantime, it was apparent to all the world that 
Lord Erradeen had spent the greater part of his first day at 
Sloebury, at the Cottage ; he had stayed to luncheon, he had 
promised to come back to practise those duets. A young 
man who has just come into his kingdom, and therefore in 
circumstances to marry, and likely m all human probability 
to be turning his thougnts that way, cannot do such things 
as this Avith impunity. If he had not meant something why 
should he thus have his interest in her daughter, 

Mrs. Herbert asked herself in T)ol3^glot jargon. There was 
no reason why he should have clone so, had he not meant it. 
Thus Walter walked into the snare though it was so evident 
though he saw it very well, and though the sportswoman 
herself trailed it on the ground before him and laughed and 
avowed her deep design. In such cases fun and frankness 
are more potent than deceit. 

Walter continued in Sloebury for two or three weeks. He 
found the stagnation of every interest intolerable. He had 
nothing to do, and though this was a condition which he had 
endured with much composure for years before, it pressed 
upon him now with a force beyond bearing. And yet he did 
not go away. He betook himself to the Cottage to practise 
those duets almost ever^^ day ; and presently he fell into the 
practice of visiting Captain Underwood almost every night ; 
t)ut not to confide in him as that personage had hoped. Un- 
derwood soon learned that a reference to Loch Houran made 
his companion silent at once, and that whatever had happened 
there the young lord meant to keep it to himself. But though 
Walter did not open his heart, he took advantage of the 
means of amusement open to him. He suffered Captain 
Underwood to discourse to him about the turf ; about horses, 
of which the young man knew nothing ; about the way in 
which ])oth pleasure and profit might be secured, instead of 
the ruin to which it is generally supposed that pursuit must 
lead. Underwood would have been very willing to “ put ” 
his young friend “ up ” to many things, and indeed did so 
in learned disquisitions which perhaps made less impression 
than he supnosed upon a brain which w'as iireoccupied by 
many thoughts. And they played a great deal, that deadly 
uort of plaj’’ between two, which is for sheer excitement’ll 


202 


THE WIZARD'^S SOM, 


sake, and is one of the most dangerous ways, of gambling. 
Walter did not lose so much as might have been expected, 
partly because his interest flagged after a certain moment, 
and partly that his companion had designs more serious than 
those of the moment, and was in no hurry to pluck his pigeon 
— if pigeon it was, oi which he was not yet sure. 

Thus the young man held himself up to. the disapproval 
of the town, which, indeed, was ready to forgive a great 
deal to a peer, but “ did not like,” as all authorities said, the 
way he was going on.” He was behaving shamefully to J ulia 
Herbert, unless he meant to marry her, which she and her 
mother evidently believed to the derision of all the spectators ; 
and to mix himself up so completely with Underwood, and 
abandon the society of his own contemporaries, were things 
which it was very difiicult to forgive. He did not hunt as he 
had intended, which would have been an amusement suited to 
his position, partly because there was a good deal of frost, 
and partly because it was not an exercise lamiliar to Walter, 
who had never had the means of keeping horses. And the 
football club belonged to the ]->revious ages, with which he 
now felt so little connection. Therefore, it happened after a 
time, notwithstading the charm of his rank, that Sloebury 
feh> itself in the painful position of disapproving of Lord 
Erradeen. Strange to say, he was very little different from 
Walter Methven, who was a young fellow who had wasted 
his time and chances — a kind of good-for-nothing, it was 
something of an insult to the community in which he lived 
that he should be “ caught ” by the most undisguised flirt, 
and should have fallen under the influence of the person 
most like a common adventurer of any in Sloebury. He 
owed it at least to those who had contemplated his elevation 
with such a rush of friendly feeling that lie should be more 
difficult to inveigle. Had he still been plain W alter Methven, 
he could not have been more easily led away. 

The house in which Walter was the first interest, and 
which had risen to such high hopes in his elevation, was 
lield in the strangest state of suspense by this relapse into 
his old ways. The only element of agreeable novelty in it 
was the presence of Symington, who had taken possession of 
the house at once, with tlie most perfect composure and 
satisfaction to himself. He was the most irreproachable 
and orderly retainer ever brought into a house by a young 
man returning home. He gave no trouble, the maids said ; 
he was not proud, but quite willing to take his meals in tlie 
kitchen, and did not stand upon his dignity. Presently, 
however, it appeared that he had got everything in his 
hands. He took the control of the dinner table, made 
suggestions to the cook, and even to Mrs. Methven herself 
when she ordered dinner, and became by imperceptible 
degress the chief authority in the house. In’ this capacity he 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


203 

looked with puzzled and disapproving eyes at his young lord. 
Ilis first inquiries as to where the horses were kept, and 
where he was to find his master’s hunting things, being- 
answered impatiently, with an intimation that Walter pos- 
sessed neither the one nor the other, Symington took a high 
tone. 

You will, no doubt, take steps, my lord, to supply your- 
self. I hear it’s a fine hunting country : and for a young 
gentleman like you with nothing to do — — ” 

“Don’t you think I can manage my own affairs best V ” 
the young man said. 

“ It’s very likely ye think so, my lord,” Avith great gravity, 
Symington said. He Avas laying the table for luncheon, and 
spoke sometimes Avith his back to Walter as he Avent and 
came. 

“ I suppose you are of a different opinion ? ” Walter said, 
Avith a laugh. 

“Not alAvays— not ahvays, my lord. I’ve seen things in 
you that were very creditable— and sense too— and sense 
too ! ” said Symington, Avaving his hand. “ I’m just thinking 
if I Avere a young gentleman in your lordship’s place, I AAmild 
get more enjoyment out of my life. But Ave never knoAA^” he 
added piously, “ Avhat Ave might be capable of, if Ave Avere 
exposed to another’s temptations and put in another’s 
place.” 

“Let me hear,” said Walter^ Avith some amusement, 
“ Avhat you Avould do if you Avere in my place. 

“ It’s Avhat I have often asked niysel’,” said Symington, 
tuiiiing round, and polishing with the napkin in his hand 
an old-fashioned silver salt cellar. “ Sui)posing ye Avere rich 
and great that are at present nobody in particular, what 
AA^ould y e do ? It’s an awful difficult question. It’s far more 
easy to find fault. We can all do that. Y^our lordship 
might say to me, ‘ That silver is no’ what it ought to be.’ 
And I Avould probably answer, ‘It’s been in a Avoman’s 
hands up till noAv,’ which ye had never taken into considera- 
tion. And I may misjudge your lordship in the same way. 

“ Do you mean to say that I too have been in a AAmman’s 
hands ? But that is uncivil, Symington, to my mother.” 

“ I would on no hand be unoeevil to my lady ; and it Avas 
not that I Avas meaning. To my thinking, my lord, you just 
dinna get enough out of your life. There is a heap of satis- 
faction to be got*t)ut of the life of a lord, when he has plenty 
of money, and five-and-tAventy years of age like you. It i.s. 
true your lordship is courting, which accounts for many 
things.” 

“What do you mean by courting? Come, Ave have had 
enough of this,” Lord Erradeen said. 

“ I did not expect, my lord, that you would bide it long, 
though you were veiy good natured to begin Avith. Courting 


204 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


is just a very well keut amusement, and no ill in it. But T 
will not intrude my remarks on your lordship. There is one 
thing thoug;h, just one thing,” Symington said, re-arranging 
the table with formal care. “ Y ou’ll no be going north again, 
my lord, as well as I can reckon, for nigh upon another 
year ? ” 

' “ What have you to do mth my going north?” Walter 
cried impatiently. 

“Your lordship forgets that I will have to go with yc, 
A7hich gives me a Iiantle to do with it,” said Symington im- 
perturbably ; “ but that will no be at least till it’s time for 
the grouse ? It will always be my duty : — and my pleasure, 
and my pleasure!’’ he aMed with a wave of his hand,- “to 
follow your lordship to the place ye ken of, and do my best 
for you : but in the meantime I’m thinking this place suits 
me real well, and I will just bide here.” 

“ Bide here, you old’ Solomon 1 ” Walter cried between 
laughter and wrath ; “ how do you know that you are to bide 
anywhere, or that I mean you to stay with me at all? ” . ' 

Symington waved his Hand dismissing tiiis question with 
the contempt it merited. “I am just a person much attached 
to the family,” he said “ and ye would not find it comfortable, 
my lord, up yonder, without me. But in the meantime ye 
Avill get a younger lad with my advice. And I’ll just bide 
Avliere I am with my lady, your mother, who is a lady of 
great judgment. I am getting an auld man ; and your ibi’d- 
ship is a young one ; and if you are over quiet at present, 
which is’ my opinion, it is no to be expected or desired 4;hat 
the like of that can last. Ye will aye find me here, my lord, 
when you want me. It will suit me far better at my years 
than running to and from upon the earth at the tail of a 
young lad. But as long as I can draw one foot after another, 
t will go with you lordship 7ip yonder^ and never fail ye ” 
Symington said.’ 


CIIAPTEB XXI. 

The mainier of life of which Symington disapproved 
went on till Christmas was over, and the new year had 
begun. It was not a new kind of life, but only the old, 
heightened in some of its features ; less tragical in its folly 
liecause the yomig man was now no longer dependent upoii 
liis own exertions, yet more tragical in so far that life had 
now great opportunities for him, and means of nobler living 
had he chosen. He received business letters now and then 
from Mr. Milnathort and from Shaw at Loch Houran, which 
he read witli impatience or not at all. Business disgusted 
him. He had no desire to take the trouble of making up his 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


205 

Blind on this or that question. He let his letters collect in a 
pile and left them there, while he went and practised his 
duets, or lighted his cigar with the pink paper of the tele- 
gram which called his attention to letters unanswered, and 
went out to play ecarte with Underwood. lie did not care 
for the ecarte. He did not care for the duets. Poor Julia’s 
devices to secure him became day by day more transparent 
to him, and Underwood’s attempts to gain an influence. He 
saw through them both, yet ivent on day by day. He was 
di^usted with them and with himself, and vaguely saw the 
difficulties which he was preparing for himself, yet went on 
all the same. The Herberts, mother and daughter, spoke of 
him with a secure proprietorship, and Julia, though never 
without that doubt which adventurers know, had almost a 
certainty of the coronet upon her handkerchief which sht* 
worked upon a cigar case for him by way of making quite 
sure what a viscoimt’s coronet was. It is a pretty ornament. 
She was rather ashamed of her old-fashioned naine, but that 
above it made everything right. Underwood for his part 
shook off the doubt which had been in his mind as to whetlier 
Lord Erradeen was a pigeon to be plucked. He thought of a 
campaign in town carried on triumphantly by means of his 
noble victim. It was worth waiting for after all. 

And thus Christmas passed. Cliristmas, that season of 
mirth ! There was the usual number of parties, at all of 
which Lord Erradeen was a favored guest, and allowed him- 
self to be exhibited as Miss Herberts thrall. In these as- 
semblies she used to talk to him about Miss Williamson. 
“ Oh yes, a lady in Scotland, whose wealth is mitold : hasn’t 
Lord Erradeen told you ? It is to be a match, I understand,” 
Julia would say with a radiant countenance. “ Sugar—or 
cotton, I don’t remember which. When one has estates in 
the west Highlands, that is part of the programme. One ai- 
way marries— sugar. That is a much prettier way of putting 
it than to say one marries money.” This tantalizkl Sloebury 
a little, and painfully mystified Mrs. Methven who had never 
heard Miss Williamson’s name ; but it did not change the 
evident fact that Lord Erradeen must either be engaged, or 
on the point of being engaged — Or else that he was using Ju- 
lia Herbert very ill. When the new year began, and it was 
suddenly announced that he was gomg away there was a frit- 
ter and thrill of excitement all over the town. The rector, 
who met Walter on his way to the railway, and who was 
aware of all the expectations connected with him, stared 
aghast at the intimation. “Going away?” he said, then put 
forth a tremulous smile. “Ah, I see! going on some visits, 
to pot a few pheasants before the season is over.” 

“I don’t think that would tempt me,” Walter said. “I 
am going to town, and my mother will follow shortly, ft is 
a removal, I fear ” 


2o6 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


‘‘ You are going from Sloebury ! But then— but then ’’ 

The old clergyman gasped for breath. 

“ My friends think 1 have wasted a great deal too much 
time in Sloebury,” Lord Erradeen said, and he waved his 
hand to the rector, who went home with his lower lip drop- 
ped, and his cheeks fallen in, in consternation beyond words. 
His excitement was as great, though of a different kind, as 
on that day when he ran in from church with his surplice 
still on, and the most extraordinary disregard of decorum to 
carry the news of Walter’s elevation in rank to his wife. 
“ That fellow is gomg off without a word,” cried Mr. Wynn. 
“ He has been amusing himself, that’s all ; but you never 
will listen to me. That girl has been going too far, a great 
deal too far, her mother ought not to have allowed it. And 
now I shall hear nothing else wherever I go,” the rector 
said. He was almost ready to cry, being old and a nervous 
man by nature. “I thought it was settled this time, and 
that we should have no further trouble with her,” which 
was a contradiction of himself after the words he had begun 
with. Mrs. Wynn soothed him as best she could, though 
indeed she had been the one who had all along doubted Lord 
Erradeen’s intentions,” and bade the rash Julia beware. 

“ Perhaps,” she said, “ they have come to an understand- 
ing, my dear. For it was guite true what he told you: he 
has wasted too much time in Sloebury. A young man in his 
position should not hang about in a place like this.” 

“ .A- young man in his position— should not raise expecta- 
tions that are never to come to anything,” the rector said ; 
which was a truth so imdeniable that even his peace-making 
wife could find nothing to reply. 

The change of sentiment which led Walter away from 
Sloebury was accomplished almost in a moment. In a ca- 
pricious and Avayward mind, a touch is sometimes enough to 
change the entire direction of a life. He had been kept in- 
doors by a cold, and for want of something else to do had 
read his letters, and> even answered one or two of them. 
There were several from ShaAv relating the course of events 
at Loch Houran ; but these might not perhaps have moved 
him, had he not found inclosed in one of them a note, noAv 
soijiehow out of d^ate, from Oona. It was very vshort and 
simple. I found I was not authorized to do anything witli 
the poor Frasers except to tell them you Avould not be hard 
upon them : and I took it upon me to assure old Jenny that 
wJiatever happened you Avould never take the -coo, and 
Hranny that she should die in peace in her own house even 
—which she would like, I think, for the credit of the glen- 
if she should live to be a hundred. I think you will not dis- 
own my agency by doing anything contrary to this. IVIv 
mother sends her best regards.” Tliere was nothing more : 
but the words acted upon Walter’s dissatisfied mind like 


The wizards son. 


207 

the sudden prick of a lance. It seemed to him that he saw 
her again standing, with a somewhat wistful look in her 
eyes, watching him as his boat shot along the gleaming wa- 
ter— her mother with her waving handkerchief, her nodding 
head, her easy smile, standing by. Oona had said nothing, 
made no movement, had only stood and looked at him. How 
little she said now ! and yet she was the only livmg creature 
(he said to himself in the exaggeration of a distracted mind) 
who had ever given him real nelp. She had, given him her 
hand without hesitation or coquetry or thought of herself, 
to deliver him from his enemy— a hand that had purity, 
strength in its touch, that was as soft— as snow, he had said : 
cool, and pure, and strong. The thought of it gave him a 
pang which was indescribable. He rose up from where he 
sat among a litter of paper and books, the accumulations of 
an idle man, and went hurriedly to the drawing-room, where 
his mother sat alone by her fire- so much the more alone be- 
cause he was in the next room, a world apart from her. He 
came in with a nervous excitement about him. 

“ Mother,” he said, “ I am going to town to-morrow.” 

She put down her book and looked at him. “ Well, Wal- 
ter ? ” sue said. 

“ You think that is not of much importance ; but it is, as 
it happens. I am going away from Sloebury. I shall never 
do any good here. I can’t think why I have stayed— why 
v;e have stayed indeed ; for it cannot nave much attraction 
for you.” ' . 

She put down the book altogether now. She was afraid 
to say too much or too little in this sudden, new resolution, 
and change of front. ^ i 

“I can understand your feeling, Walter. 1 on have 

stayed over Christmas out of consideration for ” She 

would have said “ me ” if she could, but that was impossible. 
“ For the traditions of the season,’^ she added, with a faint 
smile. . ^ ., 

“ That is a very charitable and kind way of putting it, 
mother. I have stayed because I am a fool— because 1 can t 
take the trouble to do anything but what sugges^ itseli at 
the moment. Perhaps you think I don’t know ? Oh, 1 know 
very well, if that did any good. T am going to get the house 
ready, and you will join me when it is fiPfor you to live in. 

“I, Walter?” she said, with a startled tone. _ Her face 
flushed and then grew pale. She looked at him with a 
curious mixture of pleasure- and pain. It seemed like open- 
ing up a question which had been long settled. Death is 
better than the revivmg flutters of life when these are but 
to lead to a little more suffering and a dying over again. 
She added, somewhat tremulously, “I think perhaps it 
would be better not to consider the question of removal as 
^ affecting me.” 


20S 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


“ Mother,” he said, almost wildly, his eyes blazing upon 
her, “ your reproaches are more than I can bear.” 

“ I mean no reproach,” she said, quieth^ “ It is simple 
enough. Your lite should not be fettered by cares which 
are unnecessary. I am very well here.” 

“ We can’t go all over it again,” he said. “ We discussed 
that before. But you will say I have been as selfish, as care- 
less as ever I was : and it is true— worse. Ah, I wonder if 
this was part of the penalty ? Worse, in the old way. That 
would be a sort of a devilish punishment, just like him — if 
one w ere so silly as to believe that he had the power.” 

“ Of whom are you speaking, Walter ? ” asked his mother, 
startled. “ Punishment— who can punish you ? You have 
done nothing to put yourself in any one’s power.” 

He gazed at her for a moment as she looked at him with 
anxious eyes, investigating his face to discover, if she could, 
what he meant. Then he burst into an excited laugh. 

“ I am getting melodramatic,” he said, “ by dint of being 
wretched, I suppose.” 

“ Walter, what is this ? If there is indeed anything hang- 
ing over you, for God’s sake tell me.” 

She got up hurriedly and went to him in sudden trouble 
and alarm, but the sensation of the moment did not carry 
him any further. He put away her hand almost impatiently. 

“ Oh, there is nothing to tell,” he said, with irritation. “ You 
take everything au%)ied de la lettre. But I am going to town 
to-morrow, all the same.” 

And this he did, after a night in which he slept little and 
thought much. It may be thought that Oona Forrester’s 
letter was a small instrument to effect so much, but it is not 
thus that iiinuences can be reckoned. Plis mother had done - 
a great deal more for him than Oona, but nothing she could 
have dme or said could have-moved him like the recollecP 
ion of that small, soft hand by which he had held as if it 
were the anchor of salvation. It kept him from a sort of 
despair as he reinembered it, through this turbulent night, 
as he lay awake m the darkness, asking hirpself could this 
be what his adversary meant? Not misfortune or down- 
tall, which was what he had thought of, feeling himself able 
to defy such threatts: but this self-abandonment to his 
1 Iliis more and more unsatisfactoriness of 

Which he was conscious to the bottom of his heart. It did 
not occur to him that in the dread that came over him, and 
pajmc-stricken sense of the irresistible, he was giving the at- 
tributes of something far more than man to his maniac, or 
monomaniac, of Kinloch PTouran. It was not the moment 
now to question what that being was, or how he had it in 
hp power to affect the life and soul of another. The anguish 
of feeling that he was being affected, that the better part 
was being paralyzed in liim and tlie worse made stronger^ 


THE WIZARD'>S SON. 


209 

was what occupied him now. When he got a little sleep in 
the midst of his tossings and troublings of mind and body, 
it was by the soothing recollection of Oona’s refreshing, 
strengthening touch, the hand that had been put into ms 
own and had given him the strength of two souls. 

And so it was that next morning, when he ought to have 
been practising those duets at Julia Herbert’s side, he was 
hurrying up to London as fast as steam and an express train 
could carry him. It was not perhaps the best place to go to 
for spiritual reformation, but at least it was a beginning of 
something new. And in the force of this impulse he went 
on for some time, proceeding at once to Park Lane, to push 
forward the preparations of the house, securing for himself 
a servant in the place of Symington, and establishing him- 
self, for the interval that must elapse before the house was 
ready for him, in chambers. In this way he found occu- 
pation for a week or two. He made an effort to answer his 
letters. He suffered himself to go through certain forms of 
business with the London lawyers who were the correspond- 
ents of Mr. Milnathort ; and so for a short time found him- 
self in the position of having something to do, and, still 
more strange, of doing it with a lightness of mind and en- 
livenment of life which was extraordinary, and without a 
reflection in respect to the duets and the ecarte. They were 
over, these delaissements^ and that was all about it. Why 
should there be any consequences to follow ? He had meant 
nothing in either case, neither to marry Miss Herbert nor to 
make Captain I^nderwood his chosen companion, and why 
should they object to his withdrawal ? He had not forced 
the duets upon Julia, or the play upon the captain. He had 
been invited, urged in both cases. But indeed he was so 
easy in his mind on those subjects that he did not even take 
the trouble to argue them out in this way. ^ The argument 
passed vaguely through the background of his mind, as what 
might be said if any accusation were made against him : but 
he did not see that there was any ground for accuasation, 
nor was he conscious of the least tinge of remorse or sense 
of guilt. 

It was not such plain sailing however after the beginning. 
Established in chambers which were pleasant enough, with 
plenty of money, with youth and health, and what was still 
more, as he thought, with rank and a title which had the 
effect of making "everybody civil and more than civil to him, 
Lord Erradeen suddenly awoke to the fact that he was less 
than nobody in the midst of that laisy world of London in 
which there are so many people who love a lord. Yes ; but 
before you can love a lord, invite him, caress him, make nis 
time pass agreeably, you must know him. And v\ alter 
knew nobody. The most curious, the most rueful-comic, in- 
significant-important of all preliminaries ! The doors were 


210 . 


IIIE WIZARD^S SON-, 


open, and the entertainment ready, and the guest willing ; 
hut there was no master of the ceremonies to bring him 
within tho portals. It had not occurred to him until he was 
there, nor had he thought, even had his pride permitted him 
to ask for them, of the need of introductiops, and some help- 
ing hand to bring him v/ithin the reach of society. Society, 
indeed, had as yet scarcely come back to town, but yet there 
was a sprinkling at the club windows, men were to be seen 
in Pall Mall and Piccadilly, and even a few carriages with 
ladies in them frequented the park. But what did that mat- 
ter to him who knew nobody ? He ha(! no club. He was a 
stranger from the country. No house was open to- him ; he 
went about the streets without meeting a face he knew. Po 
be sure, this must not be taken as an absolute fact, for there 
were people he knew, even relations, one very respectable 
clan of them, living at Norwood, in the highest credit and 
comfort, who would have reveived him with open arms. 
And he knew Mr. Wynn, the rector’s nephew, a moderately 
successful barrister, who called upon and asked him to din- 
ner with extreme cordiality, as did one or two other people 
connected with Sloebury. But in respect to the society to 
which he felt himself to belong, Walter was like the Peri at 
the gate of Paradise. He knew nobody. Had ever any 
young peer with means to keep up his rank, been in such a 
position before ? It gave him a certain pleasure to think 
upon one other, born to far higher fortunes than himself, 
who had entered London like this in inconceivable solitude. 
Byron! a magnificent example that went far to reconcile 
him to his fate. Walter thought a great deal of the noble 
poet in these clays, and studied him deeply,. and took pleas- 
ure in the comparison, and consolation in the feeling that he 
could enter thoroughly into all those high, scornful-wistful, 
heroic utterances about mankind. The Byronic mood has 
gone out of fashion ; but if you can imagine a youth, ricldy 
endowed by fortune, feeling that his new honors should 
open every door to him, and also a little that he was fit to 
hold his own place with the best, yet perceiving no door 
move on its hinges, and forced to acknowledge with a pang 
of surprise and disappointment, and that sense of neglected 
merit which is one of the most exquisite pangs of youth, 
that nobody cared to make his acquaintance, or even to in- 
quire who was Lord Erradeen ! It is all very well to smile 
at these sentiments where there has been no temptation to 
entertain them. But the young peer, who knew^ nobody, 
entered completely into Byron’s feelings. He pondered up- 
on the extraordinary spectacle of that other young peer 
strolling haughtily, with his look like a fallen angel, up be- 
tween the lordly ranks to take his hereditary seat : all those 
representatives of the old world staring coldly at him, and 
not one to be his sponsor and introduce hiin there. The 


THE WIZARD'S SOH, 


2II 


same thing Walter felt would have to happen in his own. 
case, if he had courage enough to follow the example of 
Byron ; and he felt how hollow were all his honors, how 
mean the indifferent spectators round him, how little appre- 
ciated himself, with all the keenness of youthful passion and 
would-be cynicism. Unfortunately, he was not a Byron, 
and he had no way of revenging himself upon that world. 

This curious and irritating discovery, after all his good 
resolutions, had, it need scarcely be ^aid, the reverse of an 
elevating influence uijon him. He sought the amusement 
from which his equals shut him out in other regions. Stroll- 
ing about town in an aimless way, he picked up certain old 
acquaintances whose renewed friendship was of little advan- 
tage. There will always be black sheep everywhere, and it 
is no unprecedented case for a boy from a public school, or 
youth from the university, to come across, six or seven years 
after he has left these haunts of learning, stray wanderers, 
who in that little time have fallen to the v^ry depth of social 
degradation. AMien such a thing happens to a young man, 
tlie result may be a noble pity and profound impression 
of life’s unspeakable dangers,' and the misery of vice ; or it 
may be after the first shock a sense that his own peccadilloes 
are not worth thinking of, seeing how infhiitely lower, down 
others have fallen. . Walter stood between these two. He 
was sincerely sorry, and anxious to succor the fallen ; but 
at the same time lie could not but feel that in his position, 
w'ho never could come to that, the precautions which poor 
men had to t^ke were scarcely necessary. . ^Vnd what could 
he do ? A young man must have something to amuse him- 
self and occupy his time. 

It was while he was sliding into the inconceivable muddle 
of an indolent mind and a vacant life that Underwood came 
to town . The captain’s motives and intentions in respect to 
him were' of a very mixed character, and require further elu- 
cidation : but the effect of his appearance in the meantime 
was a rapid acceleration of the downward progress. Under- 
wood was “ up to” many things 'which Lord Erradeen was 
not “up to ” as yet, and the young man did not any longer, 
except by intervals, despise the 'society of the elder one, who 
lirought, it could not be denied, a great many fresh excite- 
iiients and occupations into his life. Under Captain Under- 
Avood’s instructions Ix' became ocquainted Avith the turf, 
Avhich as cATrybod.y knoAvs is enough to ghm a Amung man 
quite enough to do, end e good manv things to think of. 
And now indeed the time had come AAdien the captain began 
to feel his self-banishment to Sloebury, and his patience, and 
all Ids exertions, so far as Walter A'/as concerned, fully repaid. 
There was no repetition of tliat Byronic scene in the House 
of Lords. Instead of proudly tf}king his seat alone, and 
shoAving the assembled world hoAV little he cared for its no- 


213 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


tice, Walter discovered that he was indifferent to the world 
altogether, and asked himself. What is the good of it ? with 
the philosophy of a cynic. Wnat was the good of it, indeed ? 
What was it but a solemn farce when you came to look into 
it ? The House of Commons might be something, but the 
House of Lords was nothing ; and why should a man trouble 
himself to become a member of it?* Then as to the clubs. 
What was the use of struggling to get admission to White’s, 
or Boodle’s, or any other of those ei^alted institutions whicli 
Walter only knew by name— when at Underwood’s club, 
where he was received with acclamation, you had the best 
dinner, and the best wine in London, and no petty exclusive- 
ness ? Walter was not by any means the only titled person 
in that society. There were quantities indeed of what the 
captain called ‘‘bosses” on its books. Why then should 
Lord Erradeen take the trouble to sue and wait for admit- 
tance elsewhere with these doors so open to him ? In the 
midst of this new influx of life, it is scarcely necessary to say 
that the house in Park Lane came to a standstill. It stood 
through all the season profitless, of use to nobody ; and Wal- 
ter’s life went on, alas, not to- be described by negations, a life 
without beauty or pleasure ; though pleasure was all its aim. 

At Sloebury the commotion made by his departure had 
been great. At the cottage there had been a moment of blank 
consternation and silence, even from ill words. Then JNIrs. 
Herbert’s energies awoke, and her vivacity of speech. Fire 
blazed from this lady’s eyes, and bitterness flowed from lier 
tongue. She fell upon Julia (who, indeed, might have been 
supposed the greatest sufferer) with violent reproaches, bid- 
ding her (as was natural) remember that she had always 
been against it : a reproach in which there was really some 
truth. Julia, too, had a moment of prostration in which she 
could hold no head at all agahist the sudden disappointment 
and overthrow, and still more overwhelming realization of 
what everybody would say. She retired to her room for a 
day, and drew down the blinds and had a headache in all the 
forms. During that period, no doubt, the girl went through 
sundry anguishes, both of shame and failure, such as the inno- 
cent who make no scheming are free from ; while her mother 
carried fire and flame to the Rectory, and even betrayed to 
various friends her burning sense of wrong, and that Julia had 
been shamefully used. But when Julia emerged out of the 
shelter of that ‘headache she put down all such demonstrar- 
tions. She showed to Sloebury, all on the watch to see ‘how 
she took it ” a front as dauntless and eyes as bright as ever. 
In a campaign the true soldier is prepared for anything that 
can happen, and knows how to take the evil Vvith the good. 
Had she weakly allowed herself to love Waltet the result 
might have been less satisfactory ; but she had been far too 
wise to run such a risk. Afterwards, when rumors of the 


THE W/ZARD'S SON. 


213 


sort of life he was leading reached Sloebury, she confided to 
her mother, in the depths of their domestic privacy, that it 
was just as well he was going a little wrong. 

“ Oh, a little wrong ! ” cried Mrs. Herbert vindictively. 
“ If all we hear is true it is much more than a little. He is 
just going to the bad as fast as his legs can carry him— with 
that Captain Underwood to help him on; and he richly de- 
serves it, considering how he has behaved to you.” 

“ Oh, wait ^ little, mamma,” Julia said. “ 1 know him 
better than airy one. He will come round again, and then 
he will be ready to hang himself. And the prodigal will 

come home, and then Or, perhaps, my uncle Herbert will 

ask me up to town for the end of the season, after all the 
best is over, as he is sometimes kmd enough to do. And I 
shall carry a little roast veaL just a sort of specimen of the 
fatted calf, with me to town.” Thus the young lady kept up 
her heart and bided her time. 

Mrs. Methven bore the remarks of Sloebury and 
answered all its questions with a heavier heart. She could 
not take any consolation in Walter’s wrong-doing, neither 
could she have the relief of allowing that he was to blame. 
She accounted for the re-arrangement of everything which 
she had to consent to after taking many measures for re- 
moval, by saying that she had changed her mind. “ We 
found the house could not be ready before the end of the 
season,” she said heroically, “ and’ what should I do in 
London in the height of the summer with nobody there ? ” 
She bore a fine front to the world but in reality the poor 
lady’s heart had sunk within her. Oddly enough, Julia, the 
wronged, who at heart was full of good nature, was almost 
her only comforter. Julia treated Lord Erradeen’s absence 
as the most natural thing in the world. 

“ I know what took him away in such a hurry,” she said. 
“ It was Miss Williamson. Oh, don’t you know about Miss 
Williailison ? his next neighbor at the Loch— something or 
other, a girl made of money— no, sugar. The next thing we 
shall near is that you have a daughter-in-law with red hair. 
What a good thing that red hair is so fashionable ! She is so 
rich, he was quite ashamed to mention it ; that is why he 
never told you ; but Walter,” she cried, with a laugh, “ had 
no secrets from me.” ,i 

Mrs. Methven, in dire lack of anything to cling to, caught 
at Miss Williamson as at a rock of salvation. If he hud 
fallen in love, did not that account for everything ? She 
could only pray God that it might be true. 

Symington had been bringing in the tea while Miss 
Herbert discoursed. When he came back to remove the tea 
things after she was gone, he “ took it upon him,” as he 
said, “ to put in his word.” “ If you will excuse me, my 
lady,” he said (a title which in a sort of poetical justice and 


214 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


amendment of fate Symington considered due to my lord’s 
mother), “ my lord could not do better than give his atten- 
tion to Miss Williai;nson, who is just the greatest fortune in 
all the countryside. But, even if it’s not that, there is 
nothing to be out of heart about. If he’s taking a bite out of 
the aipples of Gomorrah, he’ll very soon find the cinders 
cranshing in his mouth. But whatever he is after, when it 
comes to be the time to go ut> yonder there will be an end to 
all that.” 

My good Symington,” said Mrs. Methven, “ do you 
think it is necessary to excuse my son to me ? It would be 
strange if I did not understand him better than any one.” 
But notwithstanding this noble stand for Walter, she got a 
little consolation, both from the thought of Miss Williamson, 
and of that mysterious going up yonder^ which must be a 
crisis in his life. 

Thus winter ran into summer, and the bu^^ moiitiis of 
the season went ovei’ the head of young Lord EhTadeen. It 
was a very different season from tliat which he had anti- 
cipated. I t contained no Byronic episode at all. The House 
of Lords never saw its new member, neither did any of those 
gay haunts of the fashionable world of which he had once 
dreamed. ' He went to no l)alls or crowded dazzling re- 
ceptions, or heavy dinnei's. He did not even present himself 
at a leeee. He had indeed fallen otit of his rank altogether, 
that rank which had startled him so, with a kind of awe in 
the unexpected possession. His only club was that ('lie of 
indifferent reputation to which Underwood had introduced 
him, and his society, the indifferent company which collected 
there. He began to be tolerably acquainted with race- 
courses, great and small, and improved his play both at 
billiards and whist, so that his guide, philosopher, and 
friend declared himself ready on all occasions to take odds 
on Erradeen. He spent a great deal of his time in these 
occupations, and lost a great deal of his money. Th6y were 
almost the only things that gave him a semblance of an 
occupation in life. He was due at the club at certain hours 
to pursue this trade, which,' like any other trade, was^ a sup- 
])ort to his mind, and helped to make the time pass. At fiv(‘' 
and twenty one has so much time on liand, that to spend it 
is a pleasure, like spending money, flinging it to the right 
hand and the left, getting rid of it though there is so much 
to be got out of it that lias grown impossible to tlie old 
fogeys, no old fogey is ever so glad to throw it away. 

And thus the days went on. They were full of noise and 
commotion, and yet, as a matter of fact, they were dullish as 
they dropped one after another. And sometimes as he came 
back to his rooms in the blue of the morning, and found as 
the early sun got up, that sleep was impossible, or on such a 
moment as a Sunday morning, when there was little or 


THE WIZARHS SOH. 


\ 


21 ^ 


nothing “ to do,’’ Walter’s thoughts were not of an agreeable 
kind. Sometimes he would wake from a doze with the 
beautiful light streaming in at his windows, and the brown 
London sparrows begimiing to twitter, and would jump up 
in such a restlessness and tierce impatience with himself and 
everything about him as he could neither repress nor 
endure. At such moments his life seemed to him intolerable, 
an insult to reason, a shame to the nature that was made 
for better things, What was the good of going on with it 
day after day ? The laughter and the noise, who was it that 
called them the crackling of thorns— a hasty momentary 
blaze that neither warmed nor hghted ? And sometimes, 
even in the midst of his gayety, there would suddenly come 
into his mind a question — Was this what was to happen to 
him if he resisted the will of the dweller on Loch Houran ? 
Pshaw ! he would say to himself, what was happening to him V 
Nothing but his own will and pleasure, the liie that most 
young fellows of his age who were well enough off to indulge 
in it possessed — the life he would have liked before he 
became Lord Erradeen : whieh was true ; and yet it did not 
always suffice him for an answer. At such times curious 
gleams ot instinct, sudden perceptions as by some light 
fitfully entering, which made an instantaneous revelation 
too rapid almost for any profit, and then disappeared again 
—would glance across Walter’s soul. 

On a fine evening in June he was walking with Lhi- 
derwood to the club to dine. The streets were cool with 
the approach of night, the sky all flushed with rose red and 
every modification of heavenly blue ; the trees in the squares 
fluttering out their leaves in the coolness of the evening, and 
shaking off the dust of day, a sense of possible dew going to 
fall even in London streets, a softening of sounds in the air. 
He was going to nothing better than cards, or perhaps, for a 
caprice, to the theatre, where he had seen the same insane 
burlesque a dozen times before, no very lively prospect : and 
was cogitating in his mind whether he should not run off to 
the Continent, as several men were talking of doing, and 
so escape from Underwood and the club, and all the rest of 
the hackneyed round : which he would have done a dozen 
times over but for the trouble of it, and his sense of the bore 
it would be to find something to amuse him under such 
novel circumstances. As they went along, Underwood 
talking of those experiences which were very fine to the boys 
in Sloebury, but quite flat to Walter now— there suddenly 
appeared to him, standing on the steps of a private hotel in 
a light overcoat like a man going to dinner, a middle-aged, 
rustic-looking individual, witli a ruddy, good-humored coun- 
tenance, and that air of prosperity and well-being which 
belongs to the man of money. “ I think I have seen that 
nian somewhere before,” said Walter. Underwood looked 


2i6 


THE WIZARHS SON, 


up, and the eyes of all three met for a moment in. mutual 
recognition. “ Hallo, Captain Underwood ! ” the stranger 
said. Underwood was startled by the salutation ; but he 
stopped, willingly or unwillingiv, stopping Walter also, 
whose arm was in his. ‘‘ Mr. Williamson ! You are an im- 
expected sight in London,” he said. 

“ Ho, nOp not at all,” said the good-humored man, “ I am 
very often in London. 1 am just going in to my dinner. I 
wonder if I might make bold, being a countryman and 
straight from Loch Honran, to say, though we have never 
met before, that I am sure this is Lord Erradeen.? ” 

Walter replied with a curious sense of amusement and 
almost pleasure. Mr. Williamson, the father of the fabulous 
heiress who had been invented between Julia Herbert and 
himself ! 

“ I am very glad to make your acquaintance. Lord Erra- 
deen ; you know our lands march, as they say in Scotland. 
Are you engaged out to your dinner, gentlemenp^ may I ask, 
or are ye free to take pot luck ? My daughter Katie is with 
me, and we were thinking of — or at least she was thinking — 
for I am little learned in such matters— of looking in at the 
theatre to see a small peace of Mr. Tennyson’s that they call 
the Falcon^ and which they tell me, or rather her, is just 
most beautiful. Come now, be sociable ; it was no fault of 
mine, my lord, that I did not pay my respects to ye when ye 
were up at Loch Houran. And I^atie is very wishful to 
make your acquaintance. Captain Underwood knows of 
old that I am fond of a good dinner. You will come ? Now 
that’s very friendly. Katie, I’ve brought you an old ac- 
quaintance and a new one,” he said, ushering them into a 
large room cloudy with the fading light. 

The sudden change of destination, the novelty, the amus- 
ing associations with this name, suddenly restored Walter 
to a freshness of interest of which the hlase youth on his way 
to the noisy monotony of the club half an hour before could 
not have thought himself capable. A young lady rose up 
from a sofa at the end of the room and came forward, bend- 
ing her soft brows a little to see who it was. 

“ Is it any one I know ? for I Cannot see them,” in sim- 
plest tones, with the accent of Loch Houran, Miss William- 
jion said. 


CHAPTER XXH. 

The room was large with that air of bare and respectable 
shabbiness which is the right thing in a long-established 
private hotel— with large pieces of mahogany furniture, and 
an old-fashioned carpet worn, not bare exactly, but dim, the 


THE WIZARD^ S SOH. 


217 

pattern half obliterated here and there, which is far more 
correct and conwie il faut than the glaring newness and 
luxury of modern caravanseries. As Mr. Williamson, like a 
true Englishman (a Scotsman in this particular merely ex- 
aggerates the peculiarity), loved the costly all the better for 
making no show of being costly, it was naturally at one of 
these grimly expensive places that he was in the habit of 
staying in London. A large window, occupying almost one 
entire side of the room, filled it with dim evening light, and 
a view of roofs and chimneys, against which Katie’s little 
-figure showed as she came forward asking, ‘‘ Is it any one I 
know ? ” It was not a commanding, or even very graceful 
figure, though round and plump, with the softened curves of 
youth. When the new comers advanced to meet her, and 
she saw behind her father’s middle-aged form, the slimmer 
outlines of a young man, Katie made another step forward 
with an increase of interest. She had expected some con- 
temporaries of papa’s, such as he was in the habit of bringing 
home with him to dinner, and not a personage on her own 
level. Mr. Williamson, in his good-homored cordiality, 
stepped forward something like a showman, with a new ob- 
ject wliich he feels will make a sensation. 

“ You will never guess who this is,” he said, “ so I will 
not keep ye in suspense, Katie. This is our new neighbor at 
Loch Houran, Lord Erradeen. Think of me meeting him 
just by chance on the pavey, as ye may say, of a London 
street, and us next door to each other, to use a vulgar expres- 
sion, at home ! ” 

“ Which is the vulgar expression ?” said Katie. She was 
very fond of her father, but vet liked people to see that she 
knew better. She helcl out her hand frankly to W alter, and 
though she was only a round-about, bread-and-butter little 
girl Avith nothing biit money, she was far more at her ease 
than he Avas. “I am very glad to make your acquaintance, 
Lord Erradeen,” she said. “We have only been a week in 

“ I don’t think Ave should have been likely to meet,” said 
Walter Avith that tone of resentment which had become 
natural to him, “ if I had not been so fortimate as to en- 
counter Mr. Williamson as he says, on the pam.^^ 

Katie was not pleased by this speech. She thought that 
Walter was rude, and implied that the society which he 
frequented was too fine for the Williamsons, and she also 
tliought that he meant a laugh at her father’s phraseology, 
neither of Avhich offences Avere at all in the young man’s in- 
tention. „ , X X 

“ Oh,” Katie cried, resentful too, papa and I go to a great 
many places — unless you mean Marlborough House and that 
sort of thing. Oh, Captain Underwood!” she added next 
moment in a tone of surprise. The appearance of Captain 


2i8 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 

Underwood evidently suggested to her, ideas not at all in 
accordance with that of Marlborough House. 

“ Yes,” he said, “ Miss Williamson : you scarcely expected 
to see me. It is not often that a man is equally intimate 
with two distinct branches of a family, is it ? But I always 
was a fortunate fellow, and here I am back in your circle 
again.” 

Walter’s mind was considerably preoccupied by his own 
circumstances, and by the novelty ot this new meeting ; but 
yet he was quick-witted enough to remark with some amuse- 
ment the recurrence of the old situation with which he was 
quite acquainted— the instinctive repugnance of the feminine 
side everywhere to this companion of his, and the tolerance 
and even friendliness of the men. Katie did all but turn her 
back upon Underwood before his little speech was ended. 
She said, “ Will you ring for dinner, papa? ” without making 
the slightest replv to it ; and indeed, after another glance 
from one to the other, retired to the sofa from which she had 
risen, with a little air of having exhausted this new incident, 
and indifference to anything that could follow, which piqued 
Walter. Had she been a noble person either in fact or in ap- 
pearance, of an imposing figure and proportions even, it might 
have seemed less insupportable ; but that a little dumpy girl 
should thus lose all interest in him, classifying him in a mo- 
ment with his companion, was beyond Lord Erradeen’s pa- 
tience. He felt bitterly ashamed of Underwood, and eager 
even, in his anger at this presumptuous young woman’s hasty 
judgment, to explain how it was that he was in Underwood^s 
company. But as he stood biting his lip in the half-lighted 
room, he could not but remember how very difficult it would 
be to explain it. Why was he in Lhidef wood’s company? 
Because he could get admittance to none better. Marl- 
borough House ! He felt himself grow red all over, with a 
burning shame, and anger against fate. And when he found 
himself seated by Katie’s side at the lighted table, and sub- 
ject to the questions with which it was natural to begin 
conversation, his embarrassment was still greater. She 
asked him had he been here and there. That great ball at 
the Frencli Embassy that everybody was talking about — of 
course he had been there ? And at the Duke’s— Katie did 
not consider it necessary to particularize what duke, confident 
that no Christian, connected ever so distantly with Loch 
Houran, could have any douht on the subject. Was the 
decoration of the new dining-room so magnincent as people 
said? Walter’s blank countenance, his brief replies, the 
suppressed reluctance with which he said anything at all, 
had the. strangest effect upon Katie. After a while she 
glanced at Captain Underwood, who was talking with much 
volubility to her father, and with a very small, almost im-, 
perceptible shrug of her little shoulders, turned away and 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


219 


addressed herself to her dinner. This from a little girl who 
was nobody, who was not even very pretty, who betrayed 
her plebeian origin in every line ot her plump form, and 
fresh little commnnplace face, was more than Walter could 
bear. 

“ You must think me dreadfully ignorant of the events 
of society,” he said, “but the fact is I have not been going 
out at all. It is not very long, you are aware, since I came 
into the property and there have been a great many things 
to do.” 

“ 1 have always heard,” said Katie, daintily consuming a 
delicate entree., with her eyes upon her plate as if that was 
her sole interest, “ that the Erradeen estates were all in such 
order that there was never anything for the heir to do.” 

“You speak,” said Walter, “as if they changed hand’s 
every year.”’ 

“Oil, not that exactly; but I remember three, and I 
might have remembered others, for we have only been at 
Loch Houran since papa got so rich.” 

“ What a pleasant way of remembering dates ! ” 

“ Do you think so, Lord Erradeen ? Kow I should think 
that to have been rich always, and your father before you, 
and never to have knoivn any difference, would be so much 
more pleasant.” 

“ There may perhaps be something to be said on both 
sides,” said Walter ; “ but lam no judge, for the news of 111 v 
elevation, such as it is, came to me very suddenly, too sud- 
denly to be agreeable, without any warning.” 

Katie reconsidered her decision in the mattel’ of Lord 
Erradeen ; perhaps though he knew nobody, JieT' might not 
be quite unworthy cultivation, and besides, she had finished 
her entree. She said, “ Didn’t you know V ” turning to him 
again her once-averted eyes. 

“ I had not the faintest idea ; it came upon me like a 
thunderbolt,” he said. “ You perceive that you must treat 
me with a little indulgence in respect to dukes, etc.— even if 
I had any taste for society, which I haven’t,” he added, with 
a touch of bitterness in liis tone. 

“Oh,” said Katie, looking at him much more kindly: 
then she bent towards him with q uite unexpected familiarity, 
and said, lowering her voice, but in the most distinct whis- 
per. “ And where then did you pick up that odious man ? ” 

W alter could not but laugh as lie looked across the table 
at the unconscious object of this attack. 

“ I observe- that ladies never like him,” he said ; “ at home 
it is the same.” 

“ Oh, I should think so,” cried Katie, “ everybody thought 
it was such a pity that Lord Erradeen took him up— and 
then to see him with you ! Oona Forrester would be very 
sorry,” Katie added after a pause. 


220 


THE WIZARDS SOM, 


“ Miss Forrester ! ” Walter felt himself color high with 
pleasure at the sound of this name and feeling it a sort of 
self-betrayal, colored yet more. You know her ? ” 

Katie turned round upon him with a nvixture of amuse- 
ment and disdain. “Know her! is there any one on the 
loch, or near it, that doesn’t know her ? ” she said. 

“I beg your pardon,^’ cried Walter. “I forgot for the 
moment.” Then he too retired within himself for so long a 
time that it was Katie’s turn to be affronted. He devoted 
himself to his dinner too, but he did not eat. At last “ Why 
should she be sorry ? ” he asked curtly a:S if there had been 
no pause. 

“How can I tell you now while he sits there?” said 
Katie, lowering her voice ; “ some other time perhaps— most 
likely you will call in the daytime, in the morning, now that 
we have made your acquaintance.” • 

“ If you will permit me/’ Walter said. 

“ Oh yes, we will permit you. Papa has always wanted 
to know you, and so have I since— if you are let come : but 
perhaps you will not be let come. Lord Erradeen.” 

“Will not be let? What does that mean? and since 
when, may I ask, have you been so kind as to want to know 
me ? I wish I had been aware.” 

“ Since well, of course, since you were Lord Erradeen,” 

said the ^irl, “ we did not know of you before : and people 
like us who have nothing but money are always very fond of 
knowing a lord— everybody says so at least. And it is true, 
in a way. Papa likes it very much indeed. He likes to say 

my friend, the Earl of , or my friend, the Duke of . 

He knows a great many lords, though perhaps you would 
not think it. He is very popular with fine people. They say 
he is not at all vulgar, considering, and never takes anything 
upon him. Oh, yes, I know it all very well. I am a new 
person in W® other way— I believe it is far more what you 
call snobbish — but I can’t bear the fine people. Of course 
they are very nice to me ; but I always remember that they 
think I am not vulgar, considering, and that I never pretena 
to be better than I am.” 


1 here was something in this address spoken with a little 
h^t, which touched Walter’s sense of humor, a faculty 
which in his better moods made his own position, with all 
its incongruities, ruefully amusing to him. “ I wonder,” he 
said, if I pretend to be better than I am ? But then I should 
require in the first place to know what I am more distinctly 
than I do. Now you, on that important point, have, I pre- 
sume, no doubt or difficulty ? 

“Kot the least,” she said, interrupting him. “ The 
d^ghter of a rich Glasgow man who is nobody — that is 
whut I am — everybody knows ; but you my lord, you are a 
noble person of one of the oldest families, with the best blood 


THE WIZARHS SOH 


221 


in your veins, with ” She had been eying him somewhat 

antagonistically, but here she broke off, and fell a laughing, 
“ I don’t believe you care a bit about it,” she said. Are you 
going with us to the theatre to see the Falcon^ Lord Erra- 
deen ? ” 

“ What is the Falcon f ” he said. 

“ You have not seen it nor heard of it ? It is Mr. Tenny- 
son’s,” said Katie with a little awe. “ How is it possible you 
have not heard ? Don’t you know that lovely story ? It is a 
poor gentleman who has nothing but a falcon, and the lady 
he loves comes to see him. She is a widow (that takes away 
the interest a little, but it is beautiful all the same) with a 
sick child. When he sees her <joming he has to prepare an 
entertainment for her, and there is nothing but his falcon, so 
he sacrifices it, though it breaks his heart. And oh, to see 
the terrible stage bird that is brought in, as if that could be 
his grand hawk ! You feel so angry, you are forced to laugh 
till you cry again. That kind of story should never be 
brought to the literal, do you think it should V ” 

“ And what happens ?” said Walter, yoimg enough to be 
interested, though not sufficiently well-read to know. 

“ Oh, you might guess. She had come to ask him for his 
falcon to save his child. What could it be else? It is just 
the contrariety of things.” 

“You cannot know very much, Miss Williamson, of the 
contrariety of things.” 

“ Oh, do you think so ! Why shouldn’t I ? I think I am 
precisely the person to do so. It seems to me in my expe- 
rience,” she added, fixing a look upon him which seemed to 
Walter’s conscience to mean a great deal more than it was 
possible Katie could mean, “ that almost everything goes 
wrong.” 

“ That is alnost melancholy view to take.” 

“ But so is everything melancholy,” said the girl. Her 
little simple physiognomy, her rosy cheeks and blue eyes, 
the somewhat blimted profile (for Katie had no features, as 
she was aware) and altogether commonplace air of the little 

f rson who produced these wonderful sentiments amused 
alter beyond measure. He laughed perhaps more than was 
strictly decorous, and drew the attention of Mr. Williamson, 
who, absorbed in his talk with Underwood, had almost for- 
gotten his more important guest. 

“ What is the joke ? ” he said. “ I am glad to see you are 
keeping his lordship amused, Katie, for the captain and me 
we have got upon other subjects concerning the poor gentle- 
man, your predecessor, Lord Erradeen. Poor fellow! that 
was a very saM business : not that I would say there was much 
to be regretted before the present bearer of the title,” the 
rich man added with a laugh ; “ but at your age you could 

i 

i 


222 


THE WIZARDS SOH. 


well have waited a little, and the late lord was a very nice 
fellow till he fell into that melancholy way.” 

“ 1 told you everything was melancholy,” said Katie in an 
undertone. 

“ And I,” said the young man in the same suppressed 
voice, “ shall I too fall into a melancholy way V ” He laughed 
as he said so, but it was not a laugh of pleasure. Could he 
do nothing without having this family mystery— family ab- 
surdity-thrust into his face ? 

“ If you want your cigar, papa—” said Katie getting up, 
“ and you can’t live without that, any of you gentlemen— I 
had better go. Let laws and learning, wit and wisdom die, 
so long as you have your cigars. But the carriage is ordered 
at a quarter to ten, and Lord Erradeen is coming, he says. 
In any case you must come, you know. I can’t go without 
you,” she said, with a little imperative air. It was enough to 
make any one laugh to see the grand air of superiority which 
this little person took upon her, and her father greeted her 
exit with a loud laugh of enjoyment and admiration. 

“ She is mistress and more, as we say in Scotland,” he 
said, “ and there must be no trifling where my Katie is con- 
cerned. We will have to keep to the minute. So you are 
coming with us. Lord Erradeen ? What will you do, Under- 
wood V I’m doubtmg if what they call the poetical dramaw 
will be much in your way.” 

To which Underwood replied with some embarrassment 
that it certainly was not at all in his way. He liked Kellie 
Somebody in a burlesque, and he was always fond of a good 
ballet, but as for Shakespeare and that sort of thing, he 
owned it was above him. Good Mr. Williamson disapproved 
of ballets utterly, and administered a rebuke on the spot. 

“ I hope you are not leading Lord Erradeen into me like 
of that. It is very bad for a young man to lose respect for 
women, and how you can keep any after those exhibitions is 
lieyond me. Well, I will not say I take a great interest, like 
Katie, in poetry and all that. I like a good laugh. So long 
as it is funny I am like a bairn, I delight in a play : but I am 
not so sure that I can give my mind to it when it’s serious. 
Lord ! we’ve enough of seriousness in real life. And as for 
your bare-faced love-making before thousands of people, I 
just can’t endure it. You will think me a prejudiced old 
fogey. Lord Erradeen. It makes me blush,” said this elderly 
critic, going oif into a laugh ; but blush he did, through all 
the honest red upon his natural cheeks, notwithstanding his 
laugh, and his claret, and his cigar. Was he a world liehind 
his younger companion who glanced at him with a sensation 
of mingled shame, contempt, and respect, or a world above 
him ? W alter was so confused in the new atmos]in.,^’'e he had 
suddenly begun to breathe, that he could not tell. Ihi: jt was 


THE WIZARHS SOH. 


2^3 

altogether new at all events, and novelty is something in the 
monotony of life. 

“ I’ll see yon at the club after,” said Underwood, as they 
loitered waiting for Miss WiUiamson at the hotel door. But 
Walter made him no reply. 

Now Lord Erradeen, though he had been perverse all his 
life, and had chosen the evil and rejected the good in many 
incomprehensible ways, was not — or this history would never 
have been written— without that finer fibre in him which re- 
sponds to everything that is true and noble. How strange 
this jumble is in that confusion of good and evil which we 
call the mind of man ! How to hear of a generous action 
will bring tears to the eyes of one whose acts are all selfish, 
and whose heart *-is callous to suffering of which he is the 
cause — with what a noble fervor he will applaud the self-sac- 
rifice of the man, who in that language by which it is the 
pleasure of the nineteenth century to make heroism just half- 
ridiculous, and so save itself from the highfio^vn “never 
funked and never lied ; I guess he didn’t know how : ” and 
how he will be touched to the heart by the purity of a ro- 
mantic love, he who for himself feeds on the garbage — and 
all this without any conscious insincerity, the best part of 
him more true and real all the time than the worst ! Walter, 
to whom his own domestic surroundings had been irksome, 
felt a certain wholesome novelty of pleasure when he set out 
between the father and daughter to see what Mr. William- 
son called the “ poetical dramaw,” a thing hitherto much out 
of the young man’s way. He had been of late in all kinds of 
unsavory places, and had done his best to debase his imag- 
ination with the burlesques \ but yet he had not been able to 
obliterate his own capabilities for better things. And when 
he stood looking over the head of Katie Williamson, and saw 
the lady of the poet’s tale come into the poor house of her 
chivalrous lover, the shock with which the better nature in 
him came uppermost, gave him a pang in the pleasure and 
the wonder of it. This was not the sort of heroine to whom 
he had accustomed himself : but the old Italian romancer, 
the noble English poet, and the fine passion and high per- 
ceptions of the actors, who could understand and interpret 
both, were not in vain for our prodigal. When that lady 
paused in the humble doorway clothed in high reverence and 
poetry, not to speak of the modest splendor of her mature 
beauty and noble Yenetian dress, he felt himself blush, like 
good Mr. Williamson, to remember all the less lovely images 
He had seen. He could not applaud ; it would have been a 
profanation. He was still pure enougli in the midst of un- 
cleanness, and high enough, though familiar with baseness, 
to be transported for the moment out of liimself . 

The other two formed a somewhat comical counterbal- 
ance to Walter’s emotion ; not that they were by any means 


224 


THE WIZARD'S. SON. 


unfeeling; spectators. Mr. Williamson’s interest in the story 
was unfeigned. As Mrs. Kendal poured forth that heart- 
rending plea of a mother for her child, the good man accom- 
panied her words by strange muffled sounds which were 
quite beyond his control; and which called forth looks of 
alarm from Katie who was his natural guardian, and who 
herself maintained a dignified propriety as having witnessed 
this moving scene before. But the running commentary 
sotto voce, which he kept up throughout, might have fur- 
nished an amusing secondarv comedy to any impartial by- 
stander. “ Bless us all ! ” said Mr. Williamson, “ two useless 
servants doing nothing, and not a morsel in the house ! How 
do ye make that out ! ” “ Lordsake ! has he killed the hawk ? 
but that’s just manslaughter ; and a tough morsel I would 
say for the lady, when all’s done.” ‘‘ What is it she’s want- 
ing— just the falcon he’s killed for her. Tchick ! Tchick ! 
Now I call that an awful pity, Katie. Poor lady ! and poor 
fellow ! and he has to refuse her ! Well, he should not nave 
been so hasty. After all she did not eat a morsel of it ; and 
what ailed that silly old woman there to toss up a bit ome- 
lette or something, to save the bird — and they’re so clever at 
omelettes abroad. ^ the good man said, with true regret. “ Oh, 
papa, how material you are ! Don’t you know it’s always like 
that in life ? ” cried Katie. “ I know nothing of the kind,” 
said her father, indignantly. What is the use of being a 
poet, as you call it, if ye cannot find some. other way and not 
break their hearts. Poor lad ! Now that’s a thing Lcan’t un- 
derstand— a woman like that to come pleading to you, and 
you have to ref use her ! ” Katie looked round upon her father 
with her little air of oracle. “ Don’t you see, papa, that’s the 
story ! ^ It’s to wring our hearts he wrote it.” Mr. William- 
son paid no attention to this. He went on softly with his 
‘‘ Tchick ! tchick ! ” and when all was over dried his eyes 
furtively and got up with haste, almost impatience, drawing 
a long breath. “ It’s just all nonsense,” he said. “ I’ll not 
be brought here again to be made unhappy. So she’s to get 
him instead of the bird— but, bless me ! what good will that 
do her ? that will never save her bairn.” 

“ It will satisfy the public, more or less,” said a voice be- 
hind. 

Walter had been aware that some one else had come into 
the box, who stood smiling, listening to the conversation, 
and now bent forward to applaud as if aware that this a]i- 
plause meant something. Katie turned half round, with a 
little nod and smile. 

“Did you hear papa?” she said. “Oh, tell Mr, Tenny- 
son ! he is quite unhappy about it. Are you mihappy too. 
Lord Erradeen ? for you don’t applaud, or say a word.^’ 

“ Applaud ! ” Walter said. “ I feel that it would be taking 
a liberty. Applaud wl^at? That beautiful lady who is so 


THE WIZARHS SON, 


225 

much above me, or the great poet who is above all ? I should 
like to go away and draw breath, and let myself down ” 

“ Toots ! ” said Mr. Williamson, “ it is just all nonsense. 
He should not havfe been so hasty And now I would just 
like to know.” he added, with an air of defiance, “ what hap- 
pened to that bairn : to want a falcon and get a stepfather ! 
that was an ill way to cure him. Hoots ! it’s all- nonsense. 
Put on your cloak, Katie, and let us get away.” 

“ But I like you. Lord Erradeen, for what you say,” cried 
Katie, “ It was too beautiful to applaud. Oh, tell Mrs. Ken- 
dal ! She looked like a picture. I should like to make her 
a curtesy, not to clap my hands as you do.” 

“You will bid me tell Boccaccio next?” said the new- 
comer. “ These are fine sentiments ; but the actors would 
find it somewhat chilly if they had no applause. They would 
think nobody cared.” 

“ Lord Innishouran,” said Katie, “ papa has forgotten his 
manners. He ought to have introduced to you Lord Errar 
deen.” 

Walter was as much startled as if he had been the veriest 
cockney whose bosom had ever been fluttered by introduc- 
tion to a lord. He looked at the first man of his rank (bar- 
ring those damaged ones at Underwood’s club) whom he had 
met, with the strangest sensation. Lord Innishouran was 
the son of the Duke— the great potentate of those northern 
regions. He was a man who might make Walter’s career 
very easy to him, or, alas ! rather might have made it, had 
he known him on his first coming to London. The sense of 
all that might be involved in knowing him, made the young 
man giddy as he stood opposite to his new acquaintance. 
Lord Innishouran was not of Walter’s age. The duke was 
the patriarch of the Highlands, and lived like a man who 
never meant to die. This gentleman, who at forty-five was 
still only his father’s heir, had taken to the arts by way of 
making an independent position for himself. He Avas a di- 
lettante in the best sense of the word, delighting in every- 
tliing that was beautiful. Walter’s enthusiasm had been 
tlie best possible introduction for him ; and what a change 
there seemed in the young man’s world and all his jirospects 
as he walked home after taking leave of the Williamsons 
with Innisliouran’s, not I Underwood’s, arm within his own ! 

“ I cannot understand how it is that we have not^met be- 
fore. It would have been my part to seek you out if I had 
known you were in town,” his new friend said. “ I hope 
now you will let me introduce you to my wife. The duke 
has left town — he never stays a moment longer than he can 
help. And everything is coming to an end. JStill I am 
happy to have made your acquaintance. You knew the V\ ib 
liamsons, I suppose, before? They are excellent people— not 
the least vulgarity about them, because there’s no x)reteTP 


226 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


sion. And Katie is a clever girl, not without ambition. She 

is quite an heiress, I suppose you know ” 

I don’t know— any one, or anything,” Walter said. 

“ Come, that is going too far,” said the other, with a laugh. 

presume you don’t care for society: That is a young 
man’s notion; but society is not so bad a thing. It never 
answers to withdraw from it altogether. Yes, Katie is an 
heiress. She is to have all the Loch Houran property, I be- 
lieve, besides a good deal of money.” 

“I thought,” said Walter, “there were several sons.” 

“ One— one only ; and he has the business, with the addi- 
tion also of a good deal of money. Money is a wonderful 
quality— it stands instead of a great many other things to 
our friends there. I am fond of intellect myself, but it must 
be allowed that theYnost cultivated mind would not do for 
any man what his money does u-t once for that good neigh- 
bor of ours — who is a most excellent fellow all the same.” 

“I have met him for the fu’st time to-day,” said Walter, 
“ in the most accidental way.” 

“ Ah ! I thought you had known them ; but it is true 
what I say. I look upon money with a certain awe. It is 
inscrutable. The most perfect of artists— you and I when 
we most look up to them, do also just a little look down upon 
them! Ko, pemaps that is too strong. At all events, they 
are there on sufferance. I’hey are not of us, and they know 
it. Whether they care for us too much, or whether they 
don’t care at all, there is still that uneasy consciousness. 
But with this good-natured millionaire, nothing of the sort. 
He has no such feeling.” 

“ Perhaps because his feelings are not so keen. Miss WiU 
liamson has just been telling me what you say— that her 
family are considered not vulgar because they never pretend 
to be better than they are.” 

“ Ah ! ” cried Lord Innishouran startled, “ did Katie di- 
vine that ? She is cleverer than I thought — and a very fine 
fortune, and an ambitious little person. I hope her money 
will go to consolidate some property at home, and not fall 
into a stranger’s hands. I am all for the Highlands; you see, 
Erradeen.” 


“ And I know so little about them,” said Walter. 

But nevertheless he knew very well what was meant, and 
there was a curious sensation in his mind which he could 
not describe to himself, as if some perturbation, whether 
outside or in he could not tell which, was calmed. He had 
a great deal of talk with his new friend as they threaded the 
noisy little circle of the streets, among the shouting link-boys 
and crowds of carriages, then reached the calm and darkness 
of the thoroughfares beyon d. I^ord Innishouran talked well, 
and his talk was of a kind so different from that of Under- 
wood’s noisy coterie, that the charm of the unusual, added 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


227 

to SO many other novel sensations, made a great impression 
upon Walter’s mind, always sensitive and open to a new in- 
fluence. He felt a hot flush of shame come over him when 
walking thus through the purity of the night, and in the so- 
ciety of a man who talked about great names and things, he 
remembered the noise of the club, the heated air full of 
smoke and manities, the jargon of the racecourse and the 
stables. These things filled him with disgust, for the mo- 
ment at least, just as the duets had given him a sense of dis- 
gust and impatience at Sloebury. His new friend only left 
him at the door of his rooms, which happened to lie in Lord 
Innishouran’s way, and bade him good-night, promising to 
call on him in the morning. Walter had not been in his 
rooms so early for many a day. He hesitated whether or 
not to go out again, for he had not any pleasure in his own 
society ; but pride came to the rescue, and he blushed at the 
thought of darting out like a truant schoolboy, as soon as 
the better influence was withdrawn. Pride prevented him 
from thus rmining away from himself. He took a book out 
of the shelves, which he had not done for so long. But soon 
the book dropped aside, and he began to review the strange 
circumstances of the evening. In a moment, as it seemed, 
his horizon had changed. Hitherto, except in so far as 
money was concerned, he had derived no advantage from 
his new rank. Now everything seemed opening before him. 
He could not be unmoved in this moment of transition. 
Perhaps the life which was called fast had never contained 
any real temptation to Walter. It had come in and invaded 
the indolence of his mind and filled the vacant house of his 
soul, swept and garnished but unoccupied, according to tlie 
powerful simile of scripture ; but there was no tug at his 
senses now urging him to go back to it. And then he thought, 
with a certain elation, of Lord Innishouran, and pleasurably 
of the Williamsons. Katie, was that her name ? He could 
not but laugh to himself at the sudden realization of the vis- 
ionary Miss Williamson after all that had been said. MHiat 
would Julia Herbert say? But Julia Herbert had become 
dim to Lord Erradeen as if she had been a dozen years away. 


CHAPTER XXIH. 

Next morning Lord Innishouran fulfilled his prom- 
ise of calling, and made his appearance almost before Wal- 
ter, following the disorderly usages of the society into which 
he had fallen, was ready to receive him. The middle-aged 
eldest son was a man of exact virtue, rising early, keeping 
punctual hours, and in every way conducting himself as be- 
came one whose position made him an example to the rest of 


228 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


the world. And he was one who had a deep sense of the du- 
ties of his position. It seemed to him that this young man 
was in a bad way. “ He is at a crisis, evidently at a crisis,” 
he said to his wife, “and a good influence may be everything 
for him.” “ He should marry Kate Williamson,” said Lady 
Innishouran. “ The Erradeens may be odd as you say, but 
they always manage to do well themselves.” “ Not al- 
ways, not always, my dear; the property seems to 
grow, but the men come to little,” Innishouran said, shak- 
ing his head ; and he left his house with the full intention of 
becoming a “good influence” to Walter. He proposed at 
once to put him up at the most irreproachable and distin- 
guished of clubs, and asked him to dinner on the spot. “ I 
am afraid there is nobody of consequence left whom I can 
ask to meet you,” he said ; “ but in any case Lady Innishouran 
is anxious to make your acquaintance.” 

The Innishouraiis belonged to the ranks of those very 
great people for whom the season ends much earlier than 
for others. The Duke had gone home early in June, and his 
son held that in the end of that month there was nobody of 
consequence left, except, he said to himself, cabinet minis- 
ters, who were perhaps something too much for a young 
Hignland lord. 

“ And you must take your seat,” he said, “ that is a mat- 
ter of duty. If we had met earlier the duke would of course 
have been one of your supporters. I am sure my father will 
regret it very much. But, however, it can’t be helped, and I, 
you know, don’t occupy the necessary position ; but there 
will be no diiflculty in that respect.” 

This was very different from Walter’s fine misanthropic 
Byronic idea of solitary grandeur, and defiance of the star- 
ing ranks of superantuated peers. “I am no politi- 
cian,” he said awkwardly, “ I had scarcely thought it was 
worth the while.” “It is always worth while to as- 
sume the privileges of your position,” Lord Innishouran 
said. Walter was taken possession of altogether by 
this good influence. And forthwith his path lay in a 
course of golden days. It was characteristic of Walter that 
it gave him no trouble to break his old ties, perhaps be- 
cause of the fact that he had not, so to speak, made them by 
any exercise of his will, but simply drifted into them by the 
exertions of those who meant to benefit by his wealmess. 
He did not, perhaps, put this into words, but yet felt it with 
a sort of interior conviction which was deeper than all those 
superficial shades of sentiment which bind some men to the 
companions of the day, even when they care little for them. 
Perhaps it was selfishness, perhaps strength— it was difficult 
sometimes to discriminate. 

Thus Captain Underwood, after his interrupted, but lat- 
terly almost unbroken, sway over the young man’s time and. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


229 

habits, found himself suddenly left in the lurch, and quite 
powerless over his pupil. The captain tried in the first place 
the easy tone of use and wont. 

“ Come, Erradeen,” he said, “ we shall be late. You for- 
get the engagement you made with So-and-so, and So-and- 
so ” 

“ I think it was j^ou who made the engagement,” Walter 
said. “ I am not going to keep it any how. I am going with 
Innishouran to ” 

“ With Lord Innishouran ! ” the other cried, overawed. 
“ So then,” he said, with such a sneer as is often effectual 
with the young and generous, “ now that you have got in 
with the big-wigs you mean to throw your old friends over.” 

“ I don’t know much about old friends,” Walter said. “I 
don’t call the fellows at your club old friends.” 

And then Captain Underwood made one of those mistakes 
which persons of inferior breeding are so apt to make. “You 
were glad enough to have them when you had nobody else 
to take any notice of you,” he said. This was after two or 
three attempts to recover his old standing, and when he be- 
gan to feel a certain exasperation. Walter, though he was 
irritable by nature, had so much the best of the argument 
at this moment that he kept his temper. 

“ I don’t think,” he said, “ that I ever was very glad. I 
allowed myself to be drawn into it faute de mieux^ 

“ And now I suppose jou think you can throw me off too, 
like an old glove, in your infernal Scotch, cold-blooded way ! ” 
cried the c^tain. 

“ Am I Scotch ? ” said Lord Erradeen. 

It was not much wonder, perhaps, if Underwood lost his 
temper. But another time he took matters more wisely^ 
He would not give up in a fit of temper the hold he thought 
he had obtained upon the young man. AVas it a want of feel- 
ing on the part of Walter thus to sej'arato himself without 
compunction from the man who had in his way exerted all 
his powers to please him ? The question is a difficult one. 
Lord Erradeen’s eyes (however, he said to himself) had been 
open all the time ; he had always known what Underwood’s 
obiect was. 

And yet as always it was a little difficult to formulate the 
motives of Underwood. Very few indeed have their mo- 
tives cut and dried to be classified at the pleasure of the spec- 
tator. He was an adventurer by profession, and lived by his 
wits, preferring that existence of hap hazard to other more 
steady and certain ways of existence. He had been the com- 
panion and associate of the late Lord Erradeen, who was 
weak and undefined in all his ways, one of those who are 
as people say, easily led awaj^. When that unfortunate per- 
son fell into the gloom in which he died, which some people 
said was disease of the mind and some of the body. Captain 


THE WIZARD'S SORT, 


236 

Underwood had found his occupation gone ; and it had oc- 
curred to him that the best thing he could do was to put 
himself in the.path of the new lord, whose claims were very 
well known in Scotland, and among the hangers-on of the 
family, though not to himself. He had spent a great deal 
of time and trouble in securing, as he thought, this new 
lord. And if he was not altogether in despair now, it was be- 
cause Walter Methven had already shpped through his 
hands, and been secured again ; a course of incident which 
might be repeated. And tliough he had considered Walter 
as a pigeon to be plucked, as a weakling to be twisted to his 
own purposes, as a sort of milch cow to supply him with the 
luxuries and ready money he wanted, it must not be sup- 
]>osed that his intentions to Walter were wholly evil. Pie 
liad already saved him more than once from plunderers more 
remorseless than himself, and it had always been a question 
with him whether he might not employ his knowledge of the 
family history for Walter’s advantage as well as for his own. 
JPe meant, it is scarcely necessary to say, to secure his own 
in the first place ; but when that was done, he was willing 
enough to be of use to Walter too. If the young man had 
ever confided in him, Plnderwood would have advised him 
to the best of his judgment. He would have warned him 
not to kick against the pricks, to give in to that which was 
evidently the leading influence in the family, whatever it 
Avas, and to Ins life according to that guidance. He would 
have impressed upon him the uneasy life and untimely end 
of his predecessor. Pie had it in him, he felt, to have been 
the good genius of young Erradeen. But that haughty 
young fellow Avould not hear a word ; and what could he do 
"except treat him as a pigeon to be plucked, though still Avith 
a benevolent intention, in accordance with his old allegiance 
to the family, to- save him from other plunderers as far as 
possible ? He Avas very miwilling, as may be supposed, to 
resign his protege and victim, and made spasmodic attempts 
to regain his “ influence.” At all times this “ influence ” had 
been iield precariously, and had it been a virtuous one like 
that of Lord Innishouran, Walter’s mentor and guide might 
haA^e called forth the sympathy of the spectator ; for he had 
many things to bear from the young mams quick temper, and 
the occasional dissatisfaction Avith himself and all things 
aroimd AA^hich made him so difficult to deal Avith. Under- 
Avood, hoAvever, after his first disappointment, did not de- 
spair. The changeable young felloAv, upon Avhom no one 
could calculate, AAdiose mind Avas so uncertain, Avho Avould 
shoot off at a tangent in the most unexpectea Avay, might 
as suddenly, as he had abandoned, turn to him again. 

Miss Williamson received her neAV acquaintance very 
graciously Avhen he Avent to see her next day. She met him 
Avith all the ease of an old acquaintance. 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


231 

“Papa has been so busy,” she said, “ puttin.sr John into 
the business, that we have only got here at the very end of 
the season. Yes, *it is a nuisance ; but think how many 
people there are much better than I, that never come at all. 
Oona Forrester for instance. You think perliaps she is too 
good ev^n to wish to come? Xot at all; there never was a 
girl so good as that. Besides 1 don’t think it would be good. 
A girl ought to see the world as much as a boy. When you 
don’t know the world, it makes you uninteresting— after- 
wards ; you don’t know how to talk to people. Not Oona you 
know. 1 don’t think there is any want of interest about her ; 
but most people. Well, did you like Lord Innisliouran ? He 
is very kind, and fond of exerting a good influence. I felt 
that he Avas the very person for you.” 

“ You think then that I stand in need of a good influence ? ” 
Walter said. 

“Yes, after Captain Underwood,” said Katie, calmly. “I 
think it was very lucky that you met papa, and that l.ord 
Innishouran was at the theatre and came into our box. Per- 
haps you will look back to it and think— if you had not hap- 
pened to come here, what people call accidentally, as you 
passed ” 

“ I might go a step further,” said Walter, “ and say if I 
had not happened to be with Captain Underwood, who 
knew your father^ I should never have known what good 
fortune was standing upon these steps, and never have made 
the acquaintance of Miss Williamson.” 

“ You are making fun of me,” said Katie. “ I do not mind 
in the very least. But still it is just as well, perhaps^ that 
you made the acquaintance of Miss Williamson. What were 
you going to do with yourself? Nothing so good I am sure 
as seeing the Falcon^ and making friends with Lord Innis- 
houran who can be 01 a great deal of use to you. We cannot 
do much for you, of course. All sorts of pei^ile ask us, but 
still you know we are not of your class. V\ e are only not 
vulgar, because I told you last night.” 

Walter laughed with guilty amusement, remembering 
how Lord Innishouran had justified Katie’s estimate of the 
world’s opinion. 

“ I do not understand,” he said, “ how any one can think 
of you and vulgarity in the same day.” 

“Well,” said Katie, calmly, “that is my own opinion. 
But still between me and Oona Forrester there is a great 
difference. I don’t deceive myself about that.^ And why is 
it ? I am — oh, some hundred times more rich. I can do 
almost whatever I like ; that is to say I can turn papa, as 
people say., round my little finger (that is rather vulgar, by 
the way}. I come up here, I go abroad^ I meet all kinds of 
interesting people : and yet I am not like Oona when all is 
said. Now how is that ? It does not seem quite fair.” 


232 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


She looked at him with an honest pair of blue eyes out of 
a prepossessing, sensible little face, as she asked this question 
with all the gravity of a philosophical investigator. Notwith- 
standing a little figure which tlireatened in after life to be 
dumpy, and a prome of which the lines were by no, means 
distinctly drawn, Katie Williamson at twenty had enough 
of the beaut edu diable to make her ra^ther an attractive little 
person. But as Walter looked at her, he too seemed to see 
a vision of the other with whom she compared herself. He 
always thought of Oona as she had stood watching his boat 
pushed off ; his mind at the time had been too hurried and 
eager to remark her look ; but that deeper faculty which 
garners up a face, a look, an act which we do not seem to 
notice at the moment, and makes them afterwards more real 
and present to us than things that are under our eyes, had 
taken a picture of Oona as she stood in that proioundest 
deep of emotion, the most poignant moment of her life, with 
something of the wondering pang in her eyes which was in 
her heart. How many times since tlien had he seen her, 
though he had not seen her at the time ! Looking at her in 
his mind’s eye, he forgot altogether the question Katie was 
putting to him, and the necessity of protesting politely that 
she did herself wrong. Indeed he was not roused to this till 
Katie herself, after pausing for reply, said with a little 
sharpness, “You don’t make me any answer. Lord Erradeen: 
you ought to tell me I have no reason to be so humble- 
minded, but that ! am as good as Oona. That is what any 
polite person would say.” 

Thus challenged, Walter started with a certain sheepish- 
ness, and hastened to inform her, stammering, that compari- 
sons were odious, but that there was nobody who might not 
be flattered, who ought not to be pleased, who in short 
would not be happy to think themselves on the same 
level- 

Katie broke through his embarrassed explanations with 
a laugh. “You quite agree with me,” she said, “ and that is 
what I like you for. I am not a girl who wants compliments. 
I am an inquirer. And things are so fimny in this world : 
everything about ourselves is so droll ” 

“ What is that you are saying about being droll, Katie ? ” 
said Mr. Williamson, coming in. “You do say very daft- 
like things, my deaiy if that is what you mean. And how are 
you this morning. Lord Erradeen? none the worse of that 
Falcon f Bless me, that falcon — that just set your teeth on 
edge the very sight of it. I am glad it was not served up to 
me. But you will stay to your lunch ? We are just going to 
lunchj Katie and T ; and we are both very fond of company. 
Now just stay. I will take it very kind if you have nothing 
better to do: and afterwards we’ll stroll together to the 
Caledonian Club, which you ought to be a member of, I.oid 


THE WIZARD'S SOH. 


233 

Erracleen, for auld Scotland’s sake. I will put you up if 
that is agreeable to you. • Come, Katie, show Lord Erradeeu 
the way. I have been knocking about all the morning, and 
I am bound to say I’m very ready for my lunch.” 

And in this way affairs went on. IJnaccustomed as he 
was to consider what any change of direction might lead to, 
it suited Walter very well to have a place where he was 
always welcome within his reach, and to be urged to stay to 
lunch, to go to the opera and the theatre, to be the audience 
for Katie’s philosopnies, which amused him. The atmos- 
])here was new and if not, perhaps, exciting, was fresh and 
full of variety. He had never in his life encountered any- 
thing like the easy wealthiness and homeliness, the power 
to do whatever they pleased, yet extreme simplicity in doing 
it, which characterized both father and daughter. And 
there was so much movement and energy about them that 
he was kept amused. Katie’s perfectly just impression of 
the opinion of the world had no embittering effect upon that 
little philosopher, whose consciousness of well-being, and of 
the many ways in which she was better off than her neigh-, 
bors, gave her a composure and good humor which were 
delightful. By and by, though Walter himself was not 
aware of this, he began to receive invitations to entertain- 
ments at which the Williamsons were to be present, Avitli 
that understanding on the part of society which is so instinct- 
ive, and which though sometimes without foundation, rarely 
fails to realize its purpose. He was not indeed at all depen- 
dent upon them for his society. Lord Innishouran had 
opened the way, which once open, is so very easy for a young 
peer, whose antecedents, even if doubtful, have never coni- 

E elled general disapproval. He who had known nobody, 
ecame in a month’s time capable of understanding all the 
allusions, and entering into that curious society-talk which 
the most brilliant intellects out of it are confused by, and 
the most shallow within gain a certain appearance of intelli- 
gence from. After a little' awkwardness at the beginning, 
easily explained by the benevolent theory that he had only 
just come to town, and knew nobody, he had speedily picked 
up the threads of the new existence, and got himself into its 
routine. To a new mind there is so much that is attractive 
in it — a specious air of knowing, of living, of greater experi- 
ence, and more universal interests is diffused over it. And 
how indeed should it be possible not to know more in the 
midst of that constant multiplicity of events, and in sight 
and hearing of those that pull the strings and move the pu] - 
pets everywhere ? There is something in brushing shoulders 
with a minister of state that widens tlie apprehension ; and 
even the lightest little attache gives a feeling that it is cos- 
mopolitan to the circle in which he laughs and denies any 
knowledge of European secrets. Probably the denial is quite 


THE WIZARD"^ S SOl^. 


334 

true, but nobody believes it, and the young lady with whom 
he has flirted knows a little more of the world in consequence 
—that is of the world, as it is understood in those regions 
which claim that name for themselves. This tone A4h^lter 
acquired so easily that it surprised himself. He did it better 
than many to the manner born, for to be sure there was to 
him a novelty in it, which made it feel real, and kept him 
amused and pleased with himself. He took his seat in the 
House of Lords, not in the Byronic way, and thought a great 
deal more of the House of Lords ever after. It seemed to 
him an important factor in European afl;airs, and the most 
august assembly in the world. No— that term perhaps is 
sacred to the House of Commons, or rather was sacred to 
the House of Commons, at the time when there were no 
other popular chambers of legislators to contest the dignity. 
But a hereditary legislator may still be allowed to think with 
awe of that bulwark of the constitution in which he has a 
share. 

Lord Erradeen became one of the immediate circle of the 
Timishourans, where all “ the best people ” were to be met. 
Jle became acquamted with great cfignitaries both of Church 
and State. He talked to ambassadors— flirted— but no, he 
did not flirt very much. It was understood that he was to 
he asked with the Williamsons by all the people who knew 
Biem ; and even among those who were a little above Miss 
Katie’s range, it was Known that there was an heiress of 
fabulous wealth, wliose possessions would sensibly enlarge 
those of Lord Erradeen, and with whom it was an under- 
stood thing— so that flirtation with him was gently discour- 
aged by the authorities. And he himself did not perhaps 
find that amusement necessary ; for everything was new to 
him— his o^vn importance, which had never up to this time 
been properly acknowledged, and still more the importance 
uf others with whom it was a wonder to the young man to 
feel himself associating. The Underwood crew had always 
secretly angered him, as undeniably inferior to the societv 
from which he felt himself to be shut out. He had been dis- 
gusted by their flattery, yet offended by their familiarity, 
even when in appearance hon camarade. And the sense of 
internal satisfaction now in having attained unmistakably 
to “ the best people ” was very delightful to him, and the 
air of good society a continual pleasure. Probably that 
satisfaction, too, might fail by and by, and the perennial 
sameness of humanity make itself apparent. But this did 
not occur within the first season, which indeed had begun 
to wane of its early glories as a season, the duke being gone, 
and other princes, high and mighty, before Walter appeared 
m it at all. There was, however, a great deal to be done 
still in the remnant of June and the early part of July: the 
heat, the culmination of all things, the sense that these joys 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


235 

will presently be over, and another season, which, in its way, 
is like another lifetime, departed into the mst— producing a 
kind of whirl and intoxicating impulse. JPeople met three 
or four times a day hi the quickening of all the social wheels 
before they stopped altogether— in the park in the morning, 
at luncheon parties, afternoon receptions, dinners— two or 
three times in the evening— town growing more and more 
like the “village,” which it is sometimes jocularly called. 

Through all this Walter spent a great deal of his time 
with Katie Williamson. Society flattered the jirobable 
match. He had to give her his arm to dinner, to dance with 
her, to talk to her, to get her shawl and call her carriage ; 
her father, in his large good-humored way, accepting with 
much placidity, a sort of superior footman in Lore! Erradeen. 
“You are younger than I am,” he would say occasionally, 
with a laugh. He, too, began to take it for granted. It 
could not be said that it was Lord Erradeen’s fault. He in- 
deed gave in to it with a readiness which was unnecessary, 
by those continual visits at the hotel, luncheons, dinners, 
attendances at theatre and opera, w hich certainly originated 
in his own will and pleasure. But all that was so simple 
and natural. He had a sincere liking for Katie. >She was a 
refuge to him from the other society which he had thrown 
over. Why should he refrain from visiting his country 
neighbors ? There seemed nothing in the world against it, 
but everything in its favor. They asked him to be sure, or 
he would not nave gone. JMr. Williamson said— “We’ll see 
you some time to-morrow,” when they parted; and even 
Katie began to add— “ We are going to the So-and-so’s; are 
you to be there?” Nothing could be more natural, more 
easy. And yet a girl who had been properly on her guard, 
and a young man ijarticular not to have, it said that he had 
“behaved ill” to a lady would have taken more care. Had 
Katie had a mother, perhaps it would not have been ; but 
even in that case, why not.'* Walter was perfectly eligible. 
Supposing even that there had been a sowing of wild oats, 
that had not been done with any defiance of the \yorkb and 
it was now over; and the Erradeens were already a gveal 
family, standing in no need of Katie’s fortune tobol|derthem 
up. The mother, had she been living, would have had little 
reason to interfere. It was all perfectl}^ natural, suitable in 
every way, such a marriage indeed as inight have justmed 
the proverb, and been “ made in heaven.” 

It w'ould be scarcely correct to say, as is sometimes sam, 
that the last to know of this foregone conclusion, were the 
parties chiefly concerned. It might indeed be true in respect 
to Walter, but not to the other principal actor, who indeed 
was perfectly justified in her impression that he was a con- 
scioUvS agent throughout, and intended everything: he was 
.supposed to intend. Katie, for her part, was not unaware 01 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


236 

the progress of events upon which all the world had made 
up its mind. She expected nothing less than to be called 
upon to decide, and that without any great delay— perhaps 
before she left town, perhaps shortly after her return home 
—whether or not she would be Lady Erradeen. She did not 
think of the coronet upon her handkerchief , as Julia Herbert 
had done, but many things which were of importance. She 
frankly avowed to herself that she liked Lord Erradeen ; as 
to being in love with him, that was perhaps a different 
matter. She was much experienced in the world (or thought 
herself so) though she was so young ; having had no mother, 
and feeling herself the natural guide of her other less en- 
lightened parent. And she was very fond of her father. 
Sue could turn him round her little finger.” Wherever 
she wished to go he went ; whatever she wished to do, he 
was ready to carry out her wishes. She was not at all sure 
that with a husband she would have half so much of her own 
way. And Katie liked her own way. She. could not fancy 
herself blindly, foolishly in love as people were in books ; 
but she liked Lord Erradeen. So far as that went it was all 
simple enough j but on the other hand, there were mysteries 
about the family, and Katie scorned and hated mysteries. 
Suppose he should ask her to believe in the Warlock lord? 
Katie knew what would follow : she would laugh in his face, 
however serious he might be. To her it would be impossible 
to believe in any such supernatural and antiquated nonsense. 
She felt that she would scorn even the man who was her 
husband did he give faith to such fables. She would not 
listen to any evidence on the subject. Sometimes words had 
dropped from him which sounded like a belief in the possibi- 
lity of such influences. To think that she, Katie, should 
have to defer to superstition, to be res])ectful perhaps, of ab- 
surdity such as this ! That she would never do. But other- 
wise she allowed in her sensible, much-reasoning, composed 
little mind, that there was very little to object to in Lord 
Erradeen. 

Walter himself was not half so ready to realize the ])osi- 
tion. . He liked Katie, and had not been much accustomed to 
deny himself what he liked even in his days of poverty. He 
did not see now why he should not take the good with which 
the gods provided him in the shape of a girl’s society, any 
more than in any other way. He was a little startled when 
he perceived by some casual look or word that he was under- 
stood by the world in general to be Katie’s lover. It amused 
him atnrst: but he had so just an opinion of Katie that he 
was very sure she had no disposition to “ catch ” him, such as 
he had not doubted Julia Herbert to have. He might be 
vain, but not beyond reason. Indeed it wss not any stimulus 
to vanity to be an object of pursuit to Julin Herbert. It was 
apparent enough what it would be to h(;r to marry I^wd 


THE WIZARDS SOH, 


237 

Erradeen, whereas it was equally apparent that to marry 
anybody would be no object, unless she loved him, to Katie. 
And Katie, Walter was sure, betrayed no tokens of love. 
But there were many thmgs involved that did not meet the 
common eye. Since he had floated into this new form of 
“ influence,” shice he had known the girl whom it would be 
so excellent for the Erradeen property that he should marry, 
a halcyon period had begun for Walter. The angry sea of 
his own being, so often before lashed into angry waves and 
cpnvulsions, had calmed down. Things had gone well with 
him ; he had come into the society of his peers ; he had as- 
sumed the privileges of the rank which up to this time had 
been nothing but a burden and contrariety. The change was 
ineffable, not to be described ; nothing disturbed him from 
outside, but, far more wonderful, nothing irritated him 
within. He felt tranquil, he felt good: he had no inclination 
to be angry ; he was not swayed with movements of irritation 
and disgust. The superiority of his society was perhaps not 
sufficient to account for this, for he began to see the little ri- 
dicules of society after a month’s experience of it. No, it 
was himself that was changed; his disturbances were 
calmed ; he and his fate were no longer on contrary sides. It 
seemed to the young man that the change all about and 
around him was something miraculous. He seemed to stand 
on a calm eminence and look back upon the angry waters 
which he had escaped with a shiver at the dangers past, and 
a sense of relief which was indescribable, if he could get 
Katie to marry him that calm perhaps might become perma- 
nent. There would be no guilt in doing this, there would be 
no wrong to any one. And then he thought of Oona on the 
beach looking after his boat. What was she thinking then, 
he wondered? Did she ever think of him now? Did 
she remember him at all ? Had she not rather dismissed 
that little episode from her mind like a dream ? He sighed 
as he thought of her, and wondered, with wistful half- 
inquiries; but, after all, there was no groimd for in- 
quiries, and no doubt she had forgotten him long ago. 
Other questions altogether came into his mind with 
the thought of Katie Williamson. If he married her 
would not all the elements of evil which he had felt to be so 
strong, which had risen into such force, and against which 
he had been unable to contend— would they not all be lulled 
for ever ? It would be no yielding to the power that had 
somehow, he no longer reasoned how, got him in its clutches ; 
but it would be a compromise. He had not been bidden to 
seek this wealthy bride, but in his heart he felt that this 
way peace lay. It would be a compromise. It would be 
promoting the interests of the family. Her wealth would 
add greatly to the importance of the house of Erriideen. And 
if he made up his mind to a step which had so many ad- 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


33^ 

vantages, would it not in some sort be the signing of a treaty, 
the establishment of peace ? He thought with a shudder, out 
of this quiet in which his spirit lay, of those conflicts from 
which he escaped. He was like a man on Arm land contem- 
plating the horrors of the stormy sea from which he had es- 
caped, but amid which he might be plunged again. It was 
possible that the disposition in which that sea itself should 
be braved, rather than accept its alternative, might return to 
him again. But at the present moment, in full enjoyment 
of so many pleasures, and with the struggles of the former 
period in his mind, he shuddered at the i)rospect. Katie, it 
seemed to him, would be a compromise with fate. 

The other person most deeply concerned— to wit, Mr. 
Williamson— was in a state of rapture, and chuckled all day 
long over the prospect. He would have had Lord Erra- 
deen with them wherever they went. Not a doubt on the 
subject, not a possibility that all was not plain sailing, crossed 
his mind. There was no courtship indeed between them, 
such as was usual in his own more animated class and age. 
It was not the fashion, he said to himself, with a laugh ; but 
what did the young-fellow come for so constantly if it were 
not Katie? “It’s not for my agreeable conversation,” he 
said to himself, with another gunaw. When a young man 
was forever haunting the place where a girl was, there could 
not be two opinions about his motives. And it would be very 
suitable. He said this to himself with an elation which 
made his countenance glow. To think of losing Katie had 
been terrible to him, but this would not be losing Katie. 
Auchnasheen was next door to Birkenbraes, and they should 
have Birkenbraes if they liked— they should have anything; 
John was splendidly provided for by the business and all 
the immense capital invested in it ; but Katie was his dar- 
ling, and from her he could not be separated. A pretty title 
for her, and a very good fellow for a husband, and no separa- 
tion ! He thought with a sort of delighted horror as of some 
danger past, that she was just the girl that might have fallen 
in love with a lad going out to India or to the ends of the 
earth, and gone with him, whatever anyone could say ; and 
to think by the good guiding of Providence she had lighted 
on one so ideally suitable as Lord Erradeen ! The good man 
went about the world nibbing his hands with satisfaction. 
It was all he could do, in his great contentment, not to pre- 
cipitate matters. He had to put force upon himself when he 
was alone with Walter not to bid him take courage, and set- 
tle the matter without delay. 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


»39 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

Things went on in this way till nearly the end of July, 
when the parks were brown like heather, and a great many 
people already had gone out of town. Those who remained 
kept up their gayeties with a sort of desperation of energy, 
intent upon getting as much as possible out of the limited 
time. And what with the di-awmg closer of the bonds of 
society, and the additional fervor oi the pace at which every- 
thing went on, Walter spent almost his entire time inKatie^s 
society, meeting her everywhere, and being, by universal 
consent, constituted her partner and escort wherever they 
did meet. She had half begun to wonder herself that nothing 
further came of it, and that he did not speak the words» 
which would settle every question, so far at least as he was 
concerned. Miss Williamson, for her own part, reserved her 
personal freedom. She would not say even to herself that 
she had finally made up her mind. She would see what he 

had to say for himself and then But Katie was very 

prudent, and would not be premature. Walter, too, rather 
wondered at himself that he did nothing conclusive. He 
perceived for the first time in his life that the position was 
not one which could be glided over, Avhichhe could terminate 
simply by going away. He had come to that, that Katie 
must cut the knot, not he : or else, which was most likely, 
bind it closer. She was a girl of whom nobody could think 
lightly — not a good girl only, but a little personage, of dis- 
tinct importance. Ko doubt she would make such a wife as 
a man might be very well satisfied with, and even proud of 
in his w^ay. She was even pretty— enough : she was clever, 
and very well able to hold ner own. At the head of the 
table, at the head of the great house, Katie, though with in 
every w^ay a pronounced yet not unrefuied Scotch accent (as 
indeed iu the wife of a Scotch lord was very appropriate), 
would be quite equal to the position. And peace would 
come to her : no young man could do more for his family 
than bring such an accession of fortune mto it. It would 
probably save him from further vexation about small matters 
of the estate, and those persecutions about leases and invest- 
ments to which he was now subiect. This had been the one 
drawback of his life since he had known Katie. He had 
been asked to decide on one side and another : he had con- 
cluded against Peter Thomson the sheep farmer, in sheer 
vexation with Shaw’s importunity. He had thought more 
than once that he saw old Milnathort shake his head^ and 
was subject to the factor’s outspoken blame. But if he 
brought Katie into the family, what would it matter about 


THE WrZARHS SON’, 


246 

these small tilings? One or two unsatisfactory tenants 
would be little in coiTmarison with that large addition of 
fortune. And he liked Katie. In herself she was very agree- 
able to him— a companion whom he by no means wished to 
lose. There was something in her independence, her almost 
boyishness, her philosophies and questionings, which made 
her unlike any other girl with whom he liad ever been 
lirought into contact. The thing was not that they were in 
love with each other, but that they could get on quite well 
together. Notwithstanding, Walter, being quite content 
with the circumstances as they were, took no new step, but 
let the course of events run on day by day. 

They had gone together to one of the last celebrations of 
the waning season— the evening reception at the Royal Aca- 
demy. Everybody who was in town was there ; and Walter, 
who had now an abundance of acquaintances, went from one 
group to another, paying his respects to the ladies, but always 
keeping within reach of the Williamsons, with whom he 
had come. Katie expected him to be within reach. It had 
come to be a habit with her to look round for Lord Erradeen, 
to beg him to get her what she wanted^ to take her to this 
or that. Her father always most dutifully in attendance, 
yet naturally found persons of his own age to talk with ; and. 
he was apt to say foolish things about tne pictures, and say 
them at the top of his voice, which made Katie cautious not 
to direct his attention to them more than was necessary ; 
but Walter, who on the whole considered her something of 
an authority on art, and was not unwilling to accept ner 
guidance to some extent, was here a very agreeable com- 
panion. She had just intimated to him her desire to look at 
something of which the artist had been speaking to her— for 
Katie considered it her duty even in presence of society to 
show a certain regard for the pictures, as the supposed object 
of the meeting— and taking his arm was going on to the 
. corner indicated, when somebody all at once made a little 
movement towards them with a quick exclamation of pleas- 
ure, and saying, “ Walter ! ” suddenly laid a finger upon 
Lord Erradeen^ unoccupied arm. 

This sudden incident produced a curious dramatic effect 
amid the many groups of this elegant company. Some of 
the bystanders even were attracted, and one enterprising 
young painter took in his mind’s eye an instantaneous sketch 
of the three figures enacting a scene in the genteel comedy 
of life. Walter in the midst, startled, looking a little guilty, 
yet not losing Ins composure, replied readily enough, “ Juliaf’ 
holding out his hand to the somewhat eager stranger, who 
leaned forward towards him with sparkling eyes, ^and the 
most arch and smiling expression of ])leasure and interest. 
Katie, on the other hand, held back a little, and looked very 
gravely at the meeting, with a manifest absence in her conn- 


THE PVIZARHS SOH. 


241 

teiiance of that pleasure which the others expressed, whetlier 
tliey felt it or not. She did not withdraw from Walter’s 
arm, or separate herself in any way, but ^azed at the new- 
comer who addressed him so familiarly with a look of grave 
inspection. Katie meant to look dignified, and as a girl 
should look who was the lawful possessor of the attention 
to which an illegitimate claimant had thus appeared ; but 
her figure was not adapted for expressing dignity. She was 
shorter than Julia, and less imposing, and her beavte clu diahle 
could not bear comparison with Miss Herbert’s really fine 
features and charining figure. Julia was as much, or indeed 
more, a country girl than the other ; but she was much hand- 
somer, and had all the instincts 01 society. Her face was 
radiant with smiles as she gave her hand to Walter, and 
half-permitted, half-compelled him to hold it a moment longer 
than was necessary in his. 

“ I thought we could not be long of meeting,” she said, 
“ and that you were sure to be here. I am with my cousins 
the Tom Herberts. I suppose you know them? They have 
asked me up for the fag-end of the season. I always told 
you my season was the very end— and the result is, I am 
quite fresh when you jaded revellers have had too much of it, 
and are eager to hurry away.” 

Add indeed she looked fresh, glowing, and eager, and full 
of life and pleasure ; her vivid looks seemed to take the color 
out of Katie, who still stood with her hand upon Walter’s 
arm. For his part he did not know what to do. 

“ You would not think, to look round these rooms, that 
it was the fag-end of the season,” he said. 

“ Ah ! that’s your usual benevolence to make me think 
less of my disadvantages,” said Julia. “You know I don’t 
encourage illusions on that subject. You musn come and see 
me. You must be made acquainted with my cousins, if you 
don’t know them.” 

“ In the meantime. Lord* Erradeen, will you take me to 
my father, please,” said Katie, on his arm. 

“Oh,” cried Julia, “don’t let me detain you now. We 
have just come. You’ll find me presently Walter, when 
you are at liberty. Ko, go, ^o, we shall have plenty of time 
afterwards for our talks. I insist upon your going now.” 

And she dismissed him with a beaming smile, with a little 
pat on his arm as if it had been she who was his lawful pro- 
prietor, not Katie. Miss Williamson said nothing for the 
moment, but she resisted Walter’s attempt to direct her to- 
wards the picture she had meant to visit. “ I think I will go 
to papa,” sue said. “ I must not detain you. Lord Erradeen, 
from your— friend.” 

“ That doesn’t matter,” said Walter ; “ I shall see her again. 
Let us do what we intended to do. What is the ettiquette 
on such an occasion, Miss Williamson? Would it be cor-^ 


242 


THE WIZARD'^S SON. 


rect for me, a mere man, to introduce two ladies to each 
other? You know I am a novice in society. I look for in- 
struction to you.” 

I can’t tell, I am sure,” said Katie. “ I don’t think the 
case has occurred to me before. You seem to know the lady 
very well. Lord Erradeen ? ” 

“I have known her almost all my life,” Walter replied, 
not quite at his ease. “We have played together, I suppose. 
She comes from Sloebury where my mother is living. They 
have all sorts of fine comiections, but they are poor, as you 
would divine from what she said.” 

“ I did not listen to what she said. Conversation not ad- 
dress to one’s self,” said Kate with some severity, “one has 
nothing to do with. I could see of course that you were on 
the most friendly terms.” 

“ Oh, on quite friendly terms,” said Walter ; he could not 
for his life have prevented a little laugh from escaping him, 
a laugh of consciousness and amusement and embarrassment. 
And Katie, who was full of suspicion, pricked up her little 
ears. 

“ I should have said on terms that were more than friendly,” 
she said in a voice that was not without a certain sharp 
tone. 

Walter laughed again with that imbecility to which all 
men are subject when pressed upon such a question. 

“ Can anything be better than friendly ? he said. “ Poor 
Julia ! she has a very kind heart. Was not this the picture 
you wanted to see 

“ Oh,” cried Katie, “ I have forgotten all about the picture ! 
This little incident has put it out of my head. Human in- 
terest is , superior to art. Perhaps if you had not left Sloe- 
bury, if your circumstances had not changed, your friend- 
ship might have changed into— something warmer, as 
people say.” 

“Who can tell?” cried Walter in his vanity; “but in 
that case we should have been two poverties together, and 
that you know would never do.” 

“ I am no judge,” cried Katie ; “ but at all events you are 
not a poverty now, and there is no reason— Oh, there "is papa ; 
he is talking to that ambassador — but never mind. Patience 
for another minute, Lord Erradeen, till we can make our 
way to him, and then you shall go.” 

But I don’t want to go,” Walter said. 

“ Oh, that is impossible ; when Miss— Julia— I am sure I 
beg your pardon, for I don’t know her other name— was so 
kind as to tell you where to find her. You must want to 
get rid of me. Papa, give me your arm ; I want to show you 
something.” 

“Eh! what do you want to show me, Katie? I’m no 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


243 

judge, you know. You will find it very much better, I’m 
confident, to show it to young Erradeen.*^’ 

“ Thank you. Lord Erradeen,” said Katie, making him a 
curtsey. She took her father’s almost reluctant arm, and 
turned him suddenly away at once from his ambassa- 
dor, and from Walter, who stood astonished to find himself 
thus thrown off. “ Look here, papa, it is in this direction,” 
the young lady said. 

Mr. Williamson’s voice was ratheiTouder than good man- 
ners allowed. “What! is it a tiff?” he said, with a laugh. 
“ That’s according to all the rules, Katie. I’m astonished 
you have not had one before.” 

Walter heard this speech as well as Katie, and it threw 
the last gleam of reality on the position in which he stood. 
That he was looked upon by her father as her lover, and no 
doubt by herself too, or what would the encounter with 
Julia have mattered to her, was plain enough. He had 
known it vaguely before, but only from his own side of tlie 
question, and had debated it as a matter of expediency to 
himself. But when he saw it from the other side, recog- 
nizing with a shock that they too had something to say in the 
matter, and coming right up against that barrier of a 
which was so obnoxious to his character, everything took a 
very different aspect. And Julia, too, had assumed an air 
of property— had made a certain claim of right in respect to 
him. What! was he to be made a slave, and deprived of 
free action in respect to the most important act of his life, 
because he had freely accepted invitations that were pressed 
upon him? The thing was ridiculous, he said to himself, 
with some heat. It might be well for nim to offer himself 
to Katie, but tx) have a virtual demand made upon him, and 
acknowledge a necessity, that was not to be borne. Still less 
was he likely to acknowledge any right on the part of Julia 
Herbert. In her case he was altogether without responsi- 
bility, he said to himself ; and even in the other, was it a 
natural consequence of Mr. Williamson’s ^ perpetual invita- 
tions and hospitality that he should put himself at the dis- 
posal of Mr. Williamson’s daughter? He seemed to hear 
that worthy’s laugh pealing after him as he took his way 
hastily in the opposite direction to that in which he had met 
Julia, with a determination to yield to neither. “ A tiff ! ” 
and, “ according to all the rules !” A lovers’ quarrel, that 
was what the man meant ; and who was he that he should 
venture to assume that Lord Erradeen was his daughter’s 
lover ? 

Walter hurried through the rooms in the opposite direc- 
tion, till he got near tho great staircase, with its carpeted 
avenue, between the hedges of flowers, and the group of 
smiling, bowing, picturesque Academicians in every variety 
of beard, >still receiving the late, and speeding the parting 


244 


THE WIZARHS SON, 


guests. But fate was too much here for the angrv young 
man. Before he had reached the point of exit, he felt once 
more that tap on his arm. “ Walter ! I believe he is running 
away,” said a voice close to him: and there was Julia, radi- 
ant, with her natural protectors beside her, making notes of 
all that passed. 

This time he could not escape. He was introduced to 
Lady Herbert and Sir Thomas before he could move a step 
from amid that brilliant crowd. Then Julia, like Katie, de- 
clared that she had something she wished to show him, and 
led him — ^half-reluctant, halt, in the revulsion of feeling, 
pleased, to have some one else to turn to— triumphantly 
away. 

Sir Thomas, who was tired, protested audibly against 
being detained ; but his wife, more wise, caught him by the 
arm, and imposed patience. 

“ Can’t you see f ” she cried in his ear, “ what a chance it 
is for Julia— Lord Erradeen, a most eligible young man. 
And think the anxiety she is, and that one can never be sure 
what she may do.” “ She is a horrid little coquette ; and you 
may be sure the man means nothing serious, unless he is a 
fool ! ” growled Sir Thomas. But his wife replied calmly, 
“ Most men are fools ; and she is not a bad-hearted creature, 
though she must have some one dangling after her. Don’t 
let us interfere with her chance, poor thing. I shall ask him 
to dinner,” Lady Herbert said. And Sir Thomas, though 
he was rather a tyrant at home, and hated late hours, was 
kept kicking his heels in the vestibule, snarling at every- 
body who attempted to approach, for nearly an hour by the 
clock. So far, even in the most worldly bosoms, do conscien- 
tious benevolence and family affection go. 

“ Come, quick ! ” said Julia, “ out of hearing of Maria. 
She wants to hear everything ; and I have so many things 
to ask you. Is it all settled ? That was Her, of course. 
How we used to laugh about Miss Williamson ! But I 
knew all the time it would come true. Of course that was 
Julia said, leaning closely upon his arm and looking 
up into his face. 

“ I don’t know what you mean by her. It is Miss Wil- 
liamson certainly,” he said. 

“ I was sure oi it ! She is not so pretty as I should have 
expected from your good taste But why should she be 
pretty? She has so many other charms. Indeed, now that 
I think of it, it would have been mean of her to be pretty — 
and is it all settled ? ” Julia said. 

She looked at him with eyes half laughing, half reproach- 
ful, full of provocation. She was as a matter of fact slightly 
alarmed, but not half so much as she said. 

‘‘ .1 am not aware what there is to settle. We are country 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


245 

neighbors, and I meet them frequently— they go every- 
where.” 

“ Ah ! so are we country neighbors, amis Wenfance : but 
I don’t go everywhere. Lord Erradeen. Yes, I called you 
Walter ; that was for a puri)ose, to pique her curiosity, to 
make her ask who was that forward, norrid girl. Did she ? 
I hope she was piqued.” 

“ I heard nothing about any forward, horrid girl. She is 
not that sort of person. But I prefer to hear about your- 
self rather than to discuss Miss Williamson. When did 
you come ? and where are you? What a pity,” Walter said 
hypocritically “ that you come so late.” 

“ Ah, isn’t it? but what then? We are too poor to think 
of the season. This is what one’s fine friends always do. 
They ask us for the last week, when everything is stifled in 
dust— when all you revellers are dead tired and want noth- 
ing so much as to go away— then is the moment for poor re- 
lations. But mind that you come to Bruton Street,” Julia 
said. ^ “ It gives me consequence. They are not very much 
in society, and a title always tells.” 

“ You do not leave any ground for my vanity. I am not 
to suppose that I am asked for any other reason.” 

Julia pressed his arm a little with her fingers. She 
sighed and gave him a look full of meaning. 

“ The Tom Herberts will think a great deal of you,” she 
said ; “ they will instantly ask you to dinner. As for me — 
what am I that I should express any feeling? We are 
country neighbors, as you were saying. But enough of me. 
Let us return to our— lamb,” cried Julia. “ Tell me, have 
you seen a great deal of her'? How little T thought when we 
used to laugh about Miss Williamson that it would come 
true.” 

“ It has come true, as it began, in your imagination,” said 
Walter, provoked, and thinking the reiteration vulgar. He 
was aware that a great many people who knew him were 
remarking tlie air with which this new young lady hung 
upon his arm. They were not equal in this respect. She 
had few acquaintances, and did not care, nay, would have 
been pleased that she should be remarked ; whereas he be- 
gan to throb with impatience and eager desire to get away 
from the comment he foresaw, and Horn the situation alto- 
gether. Julia was very pretty, -more pretty and sparkling 
in the pleasure of having met and secured him thus at the 
\ ery outset of her too-short and too-late campaign in town, 
than he had ever known her, and there was nothing that 
was objectionable in her dress. The Tom Herberts were 
people against whom nothing could be said. And yet Lord 
Erradeen, himself not much more than a novice, felt that to 
everybody whom they met, Julia would be truly a country 
neighbor,’ a girl whom no one knew, and whose object, to, 


7 HE WIZAEHS SON, 


246 

secure a recreant lover, would be jumped at by many fine 
observant eyes. There was no return of tenderness in his 
sentiments towards her. Indeed there had been no tender- 
ness in his sentiments at any time he said to himself with 
some indignation, which made it all the more hard that he 
should thus be exhibited as her captive before the eyes of 
assembled London now. But notwithstanding his impa- 
tience he could not extricate himself from Julia’s toils. 
When, after various little pretences of going to see certain 
. pictures, which she never looked at, she suffered him to take 
her back to her friends. Lady Herbert showed herself most 
gracious to the young man. She begged that as Julia and he 
were, as she heard, very old friends, he w^ould come to 
Bruton Street whenever it suited him. Would he dine there 
to-morrow, next day? It would give Sir Thomas and her- 
self the greatest pleasure. Dear Julia, unfortunately, had 
come to town so late : there was scarcely anything going on 
to make it worth her while : and it would' be so great a 
pleasure to her to see something of her old friend. Julia 
gave him little looks of satirical comment aside wdiile her 
cousin made these little speeches, and whispers still more 
emphatic as he accompanied her downstairs in the train of 
the Herberts, who were too happy to get away after waiting 
an hour for the young lady. “ Don’t you think it is beauti- 
ful to see how concerned she is for my pleasure : and so sorry 
that I have come so late ! The truth is that she is delighted 
to make your acquaintance. But come, do come^ all the 
same,” she said, her cheek almost touching Walters shoul- 
der as she looked up to him. 

Need it be doubted that with the usual malign dispo- ' 
sition of affairs at such a crisis, the Williamsons’ carriage 
drew up behind that of the Herberts, and tbat Walter had 
to encounter the astonished gaze of good Mr. Williamson, 
and the amused but not very friendly look of Katie as she 
appeared in this very intimate conjunction ? Julia’s face so 
full of delighted and affectionate dependence raised towards 
him, and his own head stooped towards her to hear what 
she was saying. He scarcely could turn aside now to give 
them one deprecating glance, praying for a suspension of 
judgment. When he had put Jiilia in her cousin's carriage, 
and responded as best he could to the “Now, remember to- 
niorrow !” which she called to him from the window, he was 
just in time to see Mr. Williamson’s honest countenance 
with a most puzzled aspect, directed to him from the window 
of the next as the footman closed the door. The good man 
waved his hand by way of good-night, but his look was per- 
, plexed and uncomfortable. Walter stood behind on the steps 
of Burlington House amid all the shouts of the servants and 
clang of the hoofs and carriages, himself too much bewil- 
dered to know what he was doing. After a while lie re-* 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


247 

turned to get his coat, and walked home with a sense of 
having woke out of a most unpleasant dream, which some- 
how was true. 

As for Katie she drove home without a remark, while 
her father talked and wondered, and feared lest they had 
been “ ill bred ” to Lord Erradeen. “ He came with us, and 
he would naturally calculate on coming home with us,^’ the 
good man said. But Katie took no notice. She was “a 
wilful monkey ” as he had often said, and sometimes it 
would happen to her like thisj to take her own way. When 
they reached the hotel. Captain Underwood, of all people in 
world, was standing in the hall with the sleepy waiter who 
had waited up for them. “ I thought perhaps Erradeen 
might be with you,” the captain said apologetically. Katie, 
who on ordinary occasions could not endure him, made some 
gracious reply, and asked him to come in with the most un- 
usual condescension though it was so late. “ Lord Erradeen 
is not with us,” she said. “ He found some friends, people 
just newly come to town, so far as I could judge, a IMiss 
Julia — I did not catch her name— somebody from Sloebury.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Underwood, excited by his good fortune, 
“ Julia Herbert. Poor Erradeen ! just when he wanted to be 
with you ! Well that’s hard ; but perhaps he deserved it.” 

“ What did he deserve ? I supposed,” said Katie, “ from 
the V ay they talked, that they were old f rinds.” 

Underwood did not in his heart wish to injure Walter— 
rather the other way : he wanted him to marry Katie, whose 
wealth was dazzling even to think of. But Walter had not 
behaved well to him, and he could not resist the temptation 
of revenging himself, especially as he was aware like all the 
rest, that a lover’s quarrel is a necessary incident in a court- 
ship. He smiled accordingly and said, “ I know : they are 
sucn old friends that the lady perhaps has some reason to 
think that Erradeen has used her rather badly. He is that 
kind of a fellow you know : he must always have some one 
to amuse himself with. He used to be dangling after her to 
no end, singing duetSj and that sort of thing. Sloebury is the 
dullest place in creation— there was nothing else to do.” 

Katie made very little demonstration. She pressed her 
lips tightly together for a moment and then she said, “ You 
see, papa, it was not ill-bred, but the most polite thing you 
could have done to leave Lord Erradeen. Good-night, Cap- 
tain Underwood.” And she swept out of the room with her 
candle, her silken train rustling after her, as though it too 
was full of indignation with the world. Her father stood 
somewhat blankly gazing after her. He turned to the othei* 
with a plaintive look when she was gone. 

“Man,” said Mr. Williamson, “I would not have said 
that. Don’t you see there is a tiff, a kind of coolness, and it 
is just making matters worse? tVil] yon take anything? 


THE WIZARD'S SOH 


248 


No ? Well it is late, as you say, and I will bid you good- 


night.” , , , -r , . 

It was thus that the effect produced by Julia’s appearance 
was made decisive. Walter for his part, walking slowly along 
in the depth of the night towards his rooms, was in the most 
curious complicated state of feeling. He was angry and in- 
dignant both at Miss Herbert’s encounter, and the assump- 
tion on the part of the Williamson’s that it was to them that 
his attention belonged ; and he was disturbed and uneasy at 
tlie interruption 01 that very smooth stream which was not 
indeed true love, but yet was gliding on to a similar consum- 
mation. These were his sentiments on tho surface ; but un- 
derneath other feelings found play. The sense that one neu- 
tralized the other, and that he was in the position of having 
suddenly recovered his freedom, filled his mind with secret 
elation. After he had expended a good deal of irritated feel- 
ing upon the girl whom he felt to be pursuing him, and her 
whom he pursued, there suddenly came before his eves, a vis- 
ion, soft, and fresh, and cool, which came like the sweet 
Highland air in his face, as he went along the hot London 
street— Oona standing on the beach, looking out from her 
isle, upon the departing guest. What right had he to think 
of Oona ? What was there in that dilemma to suggest to 
him a being so much above it, a creature so frank yet proud, 
who never could have entered any such competition ? But 
he was made up of contradictions, and this was how it befell. 
The streets were still hot and breathless after the beating of 
the sun all day upon the unshaded pavements and close lines 
of houses. It was sweet to feel in imagination the ripple of 
the mountain air, the coolness of the woods and water But it 
was only in imagination. Oona with her wistful sweet eyes 
was as mr from him, as far off as heaven itself. And in the 
meantime he had a sufficiently difficult imbroglia of affairs 
on hand. 

Next morning Lord Erradeen had made up his mind. He 
had passed a disturbed and uneasy night. There was no 
longer any possibility of delay. Oona, after all, was but a 
vision. Two or three days— what was that to fix the color of 
a life ? He would always remember, always be grateful to 
her. She had come to his succor in the most terrible mo- 
ment. But when he rose from his uneasy sleep, there was in 
him a hurrying impulsion which he seemed unable to resist. 
Something that was not his own will urged and hastened 
him. Since he had known Katie all had gone well. He would 
put it, he thought, beyond his own power to change, he 
would go to her that very morning and make his peace and 
decide nis life. That she might refuse him did not occur to 
Walter. He had a kind of desire to hurry to the hotel before 
breakfast, which would have been indecorous and ridiculous, 
to get it over. Indeed, so strong was the impulse in him to 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


249 

this, that he had actually ^ot his hat and found himself in 
the street, hreakfastless, hetore it occurred to him how ab- 
surd it was. He returned after this and went through the 
usual morning routine, though always with a certmn breath- 
less sense of something that hurried him on. As soon as he 
thought it becoming, he set out with a half solemn feeling of 
self-renunciation, almost of sacrifice. If ’twere done when 
’tis done, then ’tw^re well it were done quickly. This was 
not a very lover-like frame of miild. He felt that he was giv- 
ing up everything that was visionary, the poetry of vague 
ideals, and even more, the inspiration of that face, the touch 
of that hand which had been as soft as snow. Katie’s hand 
was a very firm and true one. It would give him an honest 
help in the world ; and with her by his side the other kind of 
aid, he said to himself, would be unnecessary. No conflict 
with the powers of darkness would be forced upon him. His 
heated imagmation adopted these words in haste, and did 
not pause to reflect how exaggerated and ridiculous they 
would sound to any reasonable ears. 

He found Mr. Williamson alone in the room where Katie 
was usually ready to receive him in her fresh morning toi- 
lette and smile of welcome. The good man wore a puzzled 
look, and was looking over his bill with his cheque-book be- 
side him on the table. He looked up when Lord Erradeen 
came in, with a countenance full of summings up. 

“ Yes,” he said, “ I am just settling everything, which is 
never very pleasant. You need to be just made of money 
when you come to London. Katie is away this morning by 
skreign of day. Oh, yes, it was a very sudden resolution. 
She just took it into her little head. And here am I left to 
pay everything, and follow as soon as I can. It is breaking 
up our pleasant party. But what am I to do ? I tell her she 
rules me with a rod of iron. I hope we’ll see a great deal of 
you in autumn, when you come to Auchnasheen.” 

Walter went back to his rooms with a fire of resentment 
in his veins, hut yet a sense of exhilaration quite boyish and 
ridiculous. Whatever might happen, he was free. And now 
what was to be his next step ? To play with fire and Julia, 
or to take himself out of harm’s way ? He almost ran against 
Underwood as he debated this question, hurrying towards 
his own door. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

It was late in October, when simimer was gone even from 
the smooth English lanes about Sloebury, and autumn, with 
that brave florish of flags and trumpets by which she con- 
ceals decay, was in full sway over the Scotch hills and moors 


2^0 the WIZARD'S son. 

when Lord Erradeen was next heard of by those interested 
in him. He had gone abroad at the end of the season, with- 
out even returning to Sloebury to see his mother, and very 
little had been known of him during this disappearance. 
Mrs. Methven, it is to be supposed, knew something of his 
movements, but the replies ^e gave to questions addressed 
to her w^ere short and vague. She generally answered that 
he was in Switzerland ; but that is rather* a wide word, as 
everybody said, and if she was. acquainted more particularly 
with his wdiereabouts she chose to keep the information to 
herself. And in Scotland there was nothing at all knovn 
about him. All kinds of business wnited till he should be 
there, or should answer to the appeals made him. Letters 
elicited no reply, and indeed it was by no means certain that 
he got the letters that were sent to him. Mrs. Methven 
writing to Mr. Milnathort, avowed, though with reserve, 
that she was by no means sure of her son’s address, as he 
was travelling about ; and at his club they had no informa- 
tion. So that all the details of the management of the es- 
tates, about which their proprietor required to be consulted, 
had accumulated, and lay hopelessly in the Edinburgh office, 
sometimes arran^ng themselves by mere progress of time, 
though this the angry lawyer, provoked beyond measure, 
would not allow. The Williamsons had returned to Loch 
Houran, to their magnificent modern castle of Birkenbraes, 
in August, for the grouse ; it being the habit of the hospitable 
millionaire to fill his vast house for those rites of autumnal 
observance ; but neither did they know anything of the wan- 
dering peer. “We saw a great deal of young Erradeen in 
London,” Mr Williamson said; “but at the end he just 
slipped through our fingers like a knotless thread.” “ That 
seems to be his most prominent characteristic,” said Lord 
Tnnishouran, who for a time flattered himself that he had 
“ acquired an influence ’’ over this unsatisfactory young man ; 
and the other potentates of the county shook their heads, 
and remarked that the Erradeens were always strange, and 
that this new man must be just like the rest. But there can 
be no doubt that, notwithstanding the indignant manner in 
which Katie had darted away after discovering the previous 
relations of Walter with Julia Herbert, and hearing Under- 
wood’s malicious statement that “ he must always have some 
one to amuse himself with,” there was yet in that little per- 
son’s mind a conviction that something more must be heard 
of Lord Erradeen. He would write, she thought, Avhen he 
found that she had not waited for any explanation from him. 
It was not possible that after the close intercourse that had 
existed he would disappear and make no sign. And when 
this, which she thought impossible, really happened, Katie 
was more surprised than she would confess. H(‘ had “ slipped 
away like a knotless thread.” Nothing could be more true 


THE WrZARHS SON. 


than this description. From the moment when she turned 
away from him in the ^reat room at Burlington House, she 
had heal'd or seen nothing more of Walter. Whether it was 
that he had been drawn back to his allegiance to Miss Her- 
bert— who Katie magnanimously allowed was very pretty — 
or whether he had been affronted by her own withdrawal, 
or whether— which was perhaps the most likely of all— he 
had acted on mere impulse without intention of any kind, 
she could not tell. Her heart was quite whole, and there 
was not any personal wistfulness in her questionings ; but 
she was piqued, and curious, and perhaps more interested 
in Lord Erradeen than she had ever been before. It was 
almost a matter of course that she should take Oona into her 
confidence in this respect. For Oona was known, on his 
first appearance, to have “ seen a great deal ” of Lord Erra- 
deen. This she herself explained with some eagerness to 
mean that she had met him three times— one of these times 
being the memorable moment of the eviction which he had 
put a stop tOj an incident which had naturally made a great., 
commotion in the country-side. But Mrs. Forrester had 
never felt the slightest reluctance to talk of their intercourse 
with the young lord. She had declared that she took a great 
interest in him, and that she was his first friend on Loch 
Ilouran ; and anticipated with* cheerful confidence the ceit 
tainty of his commgback, “more like one of my own boys 
than anything else,” she said. The fact tl^at the Forresters 
were the first to know, and indeed the only people who had 
known him, did indeed at the time of his hrst appearance 
identify them with Lord Erradeen in a marked way. The 
minister and the factor, though not matchmakers, had al- 
lowed, as has been said, to steal into their minds, that pos- 
sibility which is more or less in the air when youth and 
maiden meet. And there were others who had said— some 
that Oona Forrester would make a capital wife for Lord 
Erradeen, a young man who was a stranger in the country ; 
some that it would be a good thing for Oona to secure, before 
any one else knew him, the best match on the loch ; and some 
even, that though Mrs. Forrester looked such a simple jier- 
son, she had her wits all about her, and never neglected the 
interests of her family. In the course of time, as Lord Erra- 
deen disappeared aiicl was not heard of any more, this gossi]) 
drooped and died away. But it left a general impression on 
the mind of the district that there was a tie of friendshij) 
between Lord Erradeen and the ladies of the Isle. They had 
something to do with him — not love, since he had never come 
again ; but some link of personal knowledge, interest, which 
nobody else had ; any iniormation about him would naturally 
be carried there first : and Katie, having elucidations to ask 
as well as confidences to make, lost no tune in carrying her 
budget to the Isle. 


THE WIZARDS SOH, 


252 

The true position of affairs there was unsuspected by any 
one. The blank which Oona anticipated had closed down 
upon her with a force even stronger than that which she 
had feared. The void, altogether unknown to any one but 
herself, had made her sick with shame and distress. It was 
inconceivable to her that the breaking off of an intercourse 
so slight (as she said to herself) the absence of an individual 
of whom she knew so little, not enough even for the most 
idiotical love at first sight, should have thus emptied out the 
interest of life, and made such a vacancy about her. It was 
a thing not to be submitted to, not to be acknowledged even, 
which she would have died sooner than let any one know, 
which she despised herself for being capable of. But not- 
withstanding all this self-indignation, repression, mid shame, 
it was there. Life seemed emptied out of all its interest 
to the struggling, indignant, unhappy girl. Why should 
such a thing be ? A chance encounter, no fault of hers, or 
his, or any one’s. A few meetings, to her consciousness quite 
accidental, which she had neither wished for nor done, any- 
thing to bring about. And then some strange difficulty, 
danger, she could not tell what, in which he had appealed to 
her for her help. She would have refused that help to no 
one. It was as natural for her to give aid and service as to 
breathe. But why,, why should a thing so simple have 
brought upon her all this that followed ? She was not aware 
even that she loved the man ; no ! she said to herself with a 
countenance ablaze with shame, how could she love him ! 
she knew nothing of him ; and yet when he had gone away 
the light had been drawn out 01 her horizon, the heart out 
of life. It was intolerable, it was cruel ; and yet so it was. 
Nobody knew with what a miserable monotony the old rou- 
tine of existence went on for some time after. She was so 
indignant, so angry, so full of resistance, that it disturbed 
her temper a little, and perhaps the irritation did her good. 
She went on (of course, having no choice in the matter), with 
all her old occupations just as usual, feeling herself in a sort 
of iron fi’amework within which she moved without any 
volition of her own. The winter months passed like one long 
blank unfeatured day. But when the spring came, Oona’s 
elastic nature had at last got the upper hand. There began 
again to be a little sweetness to her in her existence. All 
this long struggle, and the slowly acquired victory, had been 
absolutely unsuspected by those about her. Mysie, perhaps, 
spectator as servants are of the life from which they are a 
little more apart than the members of a family, di\dned a 
disturbance in the being of her young mistress who was at 
the same time her child ; but even she had no light as to 
what it was ; and thus unobserved unknown, though with 
many a desperate episode and conflict more than bloody, the 
little war l)egan to be over. It left the girl with a throbbing 


THE IV/ZARHS SON. 


253 


experience of pain such as it is extraordinary to think could 
be acquired in the midst of so much peace, and at the same 
time with a sort of sickening apprehension now and then of 
the possibility of a renewal of the conflict. But no, she said 
to herself, that was not possible. Another time she would 
at least be forewarned. She would put on her armor and 
look to all her defences. Such a cheap and easy conquest 
should never be made of her again. 

She had thus regained the command of herself without 
in the least forgetting what had been, when Katie came 
with her story to claim her advice and sympathy. Katie 
came from her father’s castle with what was in reality a 
more splendid equipage than that which conveyed her with 
swift prancing horses along the side of the loch. She came 
attended by a crew of gentlemen, the best in these parts. 
Young Tom Campbell of the Ellermore family was her bow 
oar. He was furthest off, as being hopelessly ineligible, and 
not having, even in his own opinion, the least right to come 
to speech of the heiress, for whom he had a hot boyish pas- 
sion. Scott of Inverhouran, a Campbell too by the mother’s 
side and not far off the head of his clan, was stroke ; and be- 
tween these two sat the son of a Glasgow trader, who could 
have bought them both up, and an English baronet who had 
come to Birkenbraes nominally for the grouse, really for 
Katie. Tom of Ellermore was the only one of the crew who 
might not, as people say, have married anybody, from the 
Duke’s daughter downwards. Katie was accompanied by a 
mild, gray-haired lady who had once been her governess, 
and a pretty little girl of fifteen, not indisposed to accept a 
passing tribute from the least engaged of the gentlemen, 
who was the daughter of the same. Katie deposited her 
companions and her crew with Mrs. Forrester, and calling 
Oona aside, rushed upstairs to that young lady’s bedcham- 
ber, where it was evident nobody could pursue them. 

“ Oh, Oona, never mind them'^ she cried. “Your mother 
will give them their tea and scones ; but I want you— I want 
your advice— or at least I want you to tell me what you 
think. They ^vill do very well with Mrs. Forrester.” Then 
she drew her friend into the little elbow-chair in the window, 
Oona’s favorite seat, and threw herself down on the footstool 
at her feet. “ I want you to tell me—” she said, with a cer- 
tain solemnity, “ what do you think of Lord Erradeen?’ 

“ Of Lord Erradeen ? ” said Oona, faintly. She was taken 
so completely by surprise that the shock almost betrayed 
her. Katie fixed upon her a pair of open, penetrating brown 
eyes. They were both fair, but Oona was of the golden tint, 
and Katie of a less distinguished light brownness. Katie, 
with her little profile somewhat blurred and indistinet in 
the outlines, had an air of common sense and reason, while 
Oona’s was the higher type of poetry and romance. 


254 


THE IVfZARHS SON. 


“Yes; you know him better than any one about here. 
But first, I will tell you the circumstances. We saw a great 
deal of him in London. He came everywhere with us, and 
met us everywhere ” 

“ Then, Katie,” cried Oona, with a little burst of nat- 
ural impatience ; “ you must know him a great deal better 
than 

Said Kate calmly— “ I am a quite different person from 
you, and I saw him only in society. Just hear me out, and 
you will know what I mean. People thought he was coming 
after me. I thought so myself more or less : but he never 
said a word. And the last night we met another girl, who 
got hold of him as some girls do— you know ? Oh, not taking 
his arm with her hand, as you or 1 should do, or looking at 
him with her eyes ; but just with a fling, with the whole of 
her, as those girls do. I was disgusted, and I sent him away. 
I don’t think yet that he wished ta or cared. But of course 
he was obliged to go. And then Captain — I mean one that 
knew him— told me — oh, yes, he was like that; he must 
always have some one to amuse himself with. I would not 
see him after : I just came away. Now what does it mean ? 
Is he a thing of that sort, that is not worth thinking about ; 
or is he—? — oh, no, I am not asking for your advice : I ask 
you what you think.” 

Oona was not able to quench the agitation that rose up in 
her heart. It was like a sea suddenly roused by an unfore- 
seen storm. 

“ I wish,” she said, “ you would not ask me such ques- 
tions. I think nothing at all. I— never saw him — in that 
light.” 

“What do you think?” said Katie, without changing her 
tone. She did not look in her friend’s face to make any dis- 
covery, but trifled with the bangles upon her arm, and left 
Oona free. As a matter of fact, slie was quite unsuspicious 
of her companion’s agitation ; for the question, though very 
important, was not agitating to herself. She was desirous 
of naving an unbiassed opinion, but even if that were un- 
favorable, it would not, she was aware, be at all likely to 
break her heart. 

Oona on her side was used to having her advice asked. 
In the interval she schooled herself into a consideration of 
the question. 

“I will tell you, Katie, how I have seen him,” she said, 
“ here with my mother, and among the poor cotters in the 
Truach Glas. How could I tell from that how he would be- 
have to a girl? He was very pretty with my mother. I 
liked him for it. He listened to ner and did what she told 
him, and never put on ah air, or looked weariedj as gentle- 
men will sometimes do. Then he was very kind to the 
cotters, as I have told you. To see them turned out made 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


255 

him wild with indignation. You may judge by that the kind 
of man he was. It was not hke doing them a favor ; it was 
mending a miserable wrong.” 

“ I have heard all that before,” said Katie, with a slight 
impatience, “ but what has that to do with it ? You are 
telling me facts, when I want your opinion. The one has 
nothing to do with the other. I can put this and that 
together myself. But what I want is an opinion. What 
do you tlmik f Don’t put me off any longer, but tell me 
that,” Katie cried. 

“ What do you want my opinion about? ’’asked the 
other, with also, in her turn, some impatience in her 
voice. 

Then Katie ceased playing with her bangles, and looked 
up. She had never before met with such an unsatisfactory 
response from Oona. She said with a dii-ectness which de- 
noted a natural and hereditary turn for the practical— 
“ Whether he will come ; and if he comes, what it will be 
for ? ” 

“ He will certainly come,” said Oona, “ because he must. 
You that have lived on the loch so long— you know what the 
lords of Erradeen have to do.” 

“ And do you mean to say,” cried Katie, with indignation, 
“ that an old silly story ’will bring him— and not me ? If that 
is your opinion, Oona ! Do you know that he is a man like 
ourselves ? Lord Innishouran thinks very well of him. He 
thinks there is something in him. For my part, I have never 
seen that he was clever ; but I should think he had some 
sense. And how could a man who has any sense allow 
himself to be led into that ? ” She jumped up from her seat 
at Oona’s feet in her indignation. “ Perhaps you believe in 
the Warlock lord ?” she said, with fine scorn. “Perhaps 
he believes in him ? If Lord Erradeen should speak of that 
to me, I would laugh in his face. With some people it might 
be excusable, but with a man who is of his century !— The 
last one was a fool— everybody says so : and had his head 
full of rubbish, when he was not going wrong. By the by ! ” 
Katie cried — then stopped, as if struck by a new thought 
which had not occurred to her before. 

“ What is it ? ” said Oona, who had been listening with 
mingled resignation and impatience. 

“ When we took Lord Erradeen up he was with that 
Captain Underwood, who used to be with the old lord. I 
told him you would l3e sorry to see it. Now that I remembei\ 
he never asked me the reason why ; .but Captain Underwood 
disappeared. That looks as if he had given great impor- 
tance to what I said to him. Perhaps after all, Oona, it is 
you of whom he was thinking. That, however, would not 
justify him in coming in after me. I am very fond of you. 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


but I should not care to be talked about all over London be- 
cause a gentleman was in love with you ! ” 

Oona had colored high, and then grown pale. “ You 
will see, if you think of it, that you must not use such words 
about me,” she said, with an effort to be perfectly calm. 

There is no gentleman in— as you say— with me. I have 
never put it in any one’s power to speak so.” As she spoke 
it was not only once but a dozen times that her countenance 
changed. With a complexion as clear as the early roses, 
and blood that ebbs and flows in her veins at every touch of 
feeling, how can a girl preserve such secrets from the keen 
perceptions of another 'i Katie kept an eye upon her, watch- 
ing from under her downcast eyelids. 8he had the keenest 
jiowers of vision, and even could understand, when thus 
excited, characters of a higher tone than her own. She did 
not all at once say anything, but paused to take in this new 
idea and reconcile it with the other ideas that had been in 
her mind before. 

“ That is very funny,” said Katie, after an interval. “ 1 
never thought anything dramatical was going to happen to 
me : but I suppose, as they say in books, that your life is 
always a great deal more near that sort of thing than you 
suppose.” 

“ What sort of thing ? ” said Oona, who felt that she had 
betrayed herself, yet was more determined than ever not to 
betray herself or to yield a single step to the curiosity of the 
world, as embodied in this inquiring spirit. She added, with 
a little flush of courage, “ When you, a great heiress, come 
in the way of a young lord, there is a sort of royal character 
about it. You will— marry for the sake of the world as well 
as for your own sake ; and. all the preliminaries, the doubts, 
and the difficulties, and the obstacles that come in the way, 
of course they are all like a romance. This interruption will 
be the most delightful episode. The course of true love 
never did run ■” 

“ Oh stop ! ” cried Katie, “ that’s all so commonplace. It 
is far more exciting and original, Oona, that we should be 
rivals, you and I.” 

“ You are making a great mistake,” said Oona, rising 
with the most stately gravity. “ I am no one’s rival. I 

'would not be even if . But in this case it is absurd. I 

scarcely know Lord Erradeen, as I have told you. Let us 
dismiss him from the conversation,” she added, with a 
movement of her hands as if putting something away. It had 
been impossible, however, even to say so much witliout the 
sudden flush which said more to the eyes of Katie, not 
lierself addicted to blushing, than any words could do to her 
ears. 

“ It is very interesting,” she said. “We may dismiss him 
from the conversation, but we can’t dismiss him from life, 


THE WIZARHS SOJVl 


257 


you now. And if he is sure to come to Kinloch Hour an, as 
you say, not for me, nor for you, but for that old nonsense, 

why then he will be And we shall be forced to consider 

the question. For my part, I find it far more interesting 
than I ever thought it would be. You are proud, and take 
it in King Cambyses’ vein. But I’m not proud,” said Katie, 
“ I am a student of human nature. It will take a great deal 
of thinking over, and it’s very interesting. I am fond of you, 
Oqna, and you are prettier and better than I am ; but I don’t 
quite think at this moment that I will give in even to you, 
till ” 

“ If you insist on making a joke, I cannot help it,” said 
Oona, still stately, “ but I warn you, Katie, that you will 
oft’end me.” 

“ Oh, offend you ! Why should I offend you ? ” cried 
Katie, putting her arm within that of the Highland princess. 
“It is no joke, it is a problem. When I came to ask for 
your opinion I never thought it would be half so interesjiing. 
If he has good taste, of course I know whom he will 
choose.” 

“ Katie! ” cried Oona, with a violent blush, “if you think 
that I would submit to be a candidate— a competitor— for 
any man to choose ” 

“ How can you help it ? ” said Katie, calmly. “ It ap- 
pears it’s nature. We have a great deal to put up with, 
oeing women, but we can’t help ourselves. Of course the 
process will go on in his own mind. He will not be so brutal 
as to let us see that he is weighing and considering. And 
we can have our revenge after, if we like : we can always 
refuse. Come, Oona, I am quite satisfied. You and me, 
that are very fond of each other, we are rivals. We will not 
say a word about it, but we’ll iust go on and see what will 
happen. And I promise you I shall be as fond of you as ever, 
whatever happens. Men would say that was impossible- 
just as they say, the idiots, that women are never true 
iriends. T/iat is mere folly ; but this is a problem., and it 
will be very interesting to work it out. I wonder if those 
boys have eaten all the scones,” Katie said, with the greatest 
simplicity, as she led Oona downstairs. She was sq per- 
fectly at her ease, taking the command of her more agitated 
companion, and so much pleased with her problem, that 
Oona’s proud excitement of self-defence melted away in the 
humor of the situation. She threw herself into the gayety 
of the merry young party downstairs, among whom Mrs. 
Forrester was in her element, dispensing tea and the most 
liberal supply of scones, which Mysie, with equal satis- 
faction, kept bringing in in ever fresh supplies, folded m 
the whitest of napkins. Katie immediately claimed her 
share of these dainties, intimating at once, with the decision 
of a connoisseur, the kind she preferred, but when supplied 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


258 

remained a little serious, paying no attention to “ the boys,” 
as she, somewhat contemptuously, entitled her attendaiits, 
and thinking over her problem. But Oona, in her excite- 
ment and self-consciousness, ran over with mirth and spirits. 
She talked and laughed with nervous gayety, so that Hamish 
heard the sound of the fun down upon the beach where he 
watched over the boats, lest a passing shower should come 
up and wet the cushions of the magnificent vessel from 
Birkenbraes, which he admired and despised. “ Those 
Glasgow persons,” said Hamish, “ not to b6 disrespectful, 
they will just be made of money ; but Miss Oona she H be 
as well content with no cushions at all. And if they 11 be 
making her laugh that’s a good thing,” Hamish said. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

The first to see the subject of so many thoughts was not 
any one of those to whom his return was of so much im- 
portance. Save for the fact that old Symington, who in the 
meantime had taken entire control of her house, and direction 
of everything in it, had announced to her one day the ne- 
cessity he was under of leaving her for a short time to attend 
upon my lord, Mrs. Methven was entirely ignorant of her 
son’s whereabouts. And Symington, whom she of course 
closely interrogated on the subject, did not profess to have 
had any communication from his master. “ But my lord will 
have notice,” said Symington, “ and I make no doubt of find- 
ing him there.” 

Neither was it at Kinloch Houran that Walter first ap- 
peared. On a cold October evening, in one of the early frosts 
from which everybody augurs a severe winter, and in the 
early twilight which makes people exclaim how short the 
days are getting, he knocked suddenly at the door of Mr. 
IMilnathort’s house in Edinburgh. Being dark everywhere 
else, it was darker still in the severe and classic coldness of 
Moray Place. The great houses gathered round, drawing, 
one might have thought, a closer and closer circle ; the 
shrubs in the inclosure shivered before tho breeze. IJp the 
hill from the Firth came the northeast wind, cutting like a 
scythe. It was a night when even a lighted window gives a 
certain comfort to the wayfarer; but the Edinburgh mag- 
nates had scarcely yet returned from the country, and most 
of the houses were dark, swathed in brown paper and cob- 
webs. But winter or summer made but little difference to 
the house of Mr. Milnathort, and there a certain light of 
human w^elcome was almost always to be fomid. Lord Er- 
radeen came quickly along the Edinburgh streets, which are 
grim in the teeth of a northeaster. His frame was unstrung 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


259 

and his spirits unsatisfied as of old. He had been “ abroad ” 
— that is to say, he had been hurrying from one place to 
another in search of the unattainable one which should not 
be dull. Most places were dull ; there was nothing to do in 
them. He took in at a draught the capabilities of folly that 
were there, then passed on in the vain quest. Had he been 
wholly ignoble he would have been more easily satisfied. 
But he was not so. In the worst he seemed to want some- 
thing worse, as in the best he wanted something better. He 
was all astray upon the world, desiring he did not know 
what, only aware that nothing' was suflicient for his desires. 
Underwood, who was his companion, had catered vulgarly 
for the unhappy young man, who used, with scorn the means 
of distraction provided him, and was not distracted, and 
upon whom disgust so soon followed novelty that his com- 
panion was at his wits’ end. And now he had come back, 
obeying an impulse which he neither understood nor wished 
to obey. A necessity seemed laid upon him ; all in a moment 
it had risen up in his mind, a sense that he jnust get back. 
It was so involuntary, so spontaneous, that it did not even 
occur to him at first to resist it, or to think of it as anything 
but a natural impulse. He had not been able to rest after 
this strange inclination came upon him, and it seemed to him 
in the heat of it that he had always had the same desire, that 
all the time this was what he had wanted,^ to get back. He 
hurried along over land and water, sometimes in the stream 
of summer tourists coming home, sometimes crossing the 
other tide of the sick and feeble going away— and when he 
touched English soil again, that he should have hurried to 
Edinburgh, of all the places in the world, was beyond Wal- 
ter’s power of explanation even to himself. He had felt a 
barrier between himself and the home of his youth. ' His 
mother was sepafated altogether from his new existence. 
She would not comprehend it, he thought ; his heart turned 
from the explanations tliat would be necessary. He could 
not go to her; and to whom could he go?^ The suggestion 
that came into his mind was as fantastical as the whole 
strange story of his recent life. He ^vas nothing indeed but 
a bundle of caprices, moved and played upon as if by the 
winds. And it had seemed a sort of relief to his uncertain 
mind and consuming thoughts when it occurred to him to 
come to Moray Place to see the invalid who had known so 
much about him, while he knew nothing of her. It relieved 
him, as any resolution relieves an uncertain mind. It was 
something between him and that future which always failed 
to his expectations. • When he had made up his mind he 
reflected no more, but went on, and even had an uneasy nap 
in the railway carriage as he came north ; nor ever asked 
himself why he was coming till he went up the steps at Mr. 
Milnathort^s door, and then it was too late for any such 


26 o 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


q^uestion. He mounted the lon^ stone staircase with all the 
tnrobbings of fatigue in his brain, thb sweep and movement 
of a long journey. Only once before had he been in this 
house, yet it seemed familiar to him as if it had been his 
home, and the unchanged aspect of everything affected him 
as it affects men who have been away for half a lifetime— so 
many things happening to him, and nothing here. This 
gave him a certain giddiness as he followed the same servant 
up the same stairs. He was not the same. He had been mv 
conscious of all the peculiarities of his fate when he crossed 
that threshold before. He had known the good, but not the 
evil ; and now the very carpets, the sound of the door rum- 
bling into the echoes of the tall, silent house, were the same- 
hut he so far from being the same ! Then in a moment out 
of the dim night, the half-lighted stair, he came upon the 
soft blaze of light in which Miss Milnathort delighted. She 
lay on her sofa as if she had never stirred, her old-young 
face in all its soft brightness, her small delicate hands in 
continual motion. She gave a little cry at the sight of 
Walter, and held out those hands to him. 

“ You have come ! ” she cried. “ I was looking for you ; ” 
raising herself on her couch as much as was possible to her, 
as if she would have thrown herself into his arms. When 
she felt the pressure of his hands, tears sprang to her eyes. 
“ I kne\w” she cried, “ that you would come. I have been 
looking-for you, and praying for you. Lord Erradeen.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Walter, moved too, he could scarcely tell 
why, “ that is how I have come.” 

„ but I am glad, glad to see you,” the poor lady said. 

You never came back, but I will not reproach you— I am 
too glad to have you here. And where have you been, and 
what have yop been doing ? To see you is like a child com- 
mg home.” 

• j i many different places, and uneasy in all,” 

said W alter ; and as for what I have been doing it has not 
been much good : wandering about the face of the earth, 
seeking I don’t know what ; not knowing, I think, even what 
I want.” 

She held out her hand to him again : her eyes were full 
of pity and tenderness. 

‘ Oh how 1 wanted you to come back that I might have 
g^^oken foeely to you ! I will tell you what you want, Lord 


‘‘Stop a littlOj” he said ; “I don’t want to plunge into 
that. Let us wait a little. I think I am pleased to come 
back, though I hate it. I am pleased always more or less to 
do what I did not do yesterday.” ■■ 

“ That is because your mind is out of order, which is very 
natural, she said. “ How should it be in order with so 


THE WIZARDS SOH. 


261 


much to think of ? You will have been travelling night and 
day ? ” 

“Rather quickly: but that matters nothing: it is easy 
enough travelling. I am not so effeminate as to mind being 
tired j though as a matter of fact I am not tired,” he said. 
“ So tar as that goes, I could go on night and day.” 

She looked at him with that mingling of pleasure and 
pain with which a mother listens to the confidences of her 
child. 

“ Have you been home to see your mother ?” she asked. 

Walter shook his head. 

“ I have had no thought but how to get to Scotland the 
quickest way.^ I have felt as if something were dragging 
me. What is it ? All this year I have been struggling with 
something. I have sometimes thought if I had come back 
here you could have helped me.” 

“ I would— I would ! if I could,” she cried. 

“ It is not a thing that can be endured,” said Walter : “it 
must come to an end. I don’t know how or by what means : 
but one thing is certain, I will not go on bearing it. I will 
rather make an end of myself.” 

She put a hand quickly upon his arm. 

“ Oh do not say that ; there is much, much that must be 
done before you can despair : and that is the thought of de- 
spair. Some have done it, but you must not. No— not you 
—not you.” 

“ What must I do then ? ” 

She caressed his arm with her thin, little, half-transpar- 
ent hand, and looked at him wistfully with her small face, 
half child half old woman, suffused and tremulous. 

“ Oh ! ” she said, “ my bonnie lad ! you must be good— 
you must be good first of all.” 

Walter laughed ; he drew himself back a little out of her 
reach. 

“ I am not good,” he said. I have never been good. Often 
enough I have been disgusted with myself, and miserable 
by moments. But if that is the first thing, I do not know 
how to attain to it, for I am not good.” 

She looked at him without any change in her face while 
he made this confession. It did not seem to make much im- 
pression upon her. 

“ I can tell you,” she said, “ how to overcome the devil 
and all his ways; but it eosts trouble. Lord Erradeen. 
Without that you will always be as you are, full of troubles 
and struggles : but you should thank your God that you 
cannot be content with ill-doing like those that are the chil- 
dren of perdition. To be content with it— that is the worst 
of all.” * 

“Well, then, I am in a hopeful way, it appears,” said 
Walter with a sort of laugh, “for I am certainly far enough 


262 


THE WIZARDS SONy 


from being content.” After a minute’s pause he added— “ I 
said we should not plunge into this subject at once ; tell me 
about yourself. Are you well? Are you better ? 

“ I am well enough,” fehe said, “ but never will I be better. 

‘ I have known that for many years— almost from the moment 
when, to get away from hirriy I fell off yon old walls, and be- 
came what you see.” 

“ To get away from— whom ? ” He glanced round him as 
she spoke with a look which was half alarmed and half defi- 
ant. “ I know,” he said, in a low voice, “ what delusions are 
about.” 

“ From Him. What he is, or who he is, I know no more 
than you. I have thought like you that it was my own de- 
lusion. I have wondered from year to year if maybe I had 
deceived myself. But the upshot of all is what 1 tell you. I 
am lying here these thirty years and more, because being 
very young I ha,d no command of myself but was frightened 
and flew from Him.” 

“ It is against all possibility, all good sense, against every- 
thing one believes. I will not believe it,” cried Walter; 
“ you were young, as you say, and frightened. And I was — 
a fool— unprepared, not knowing what to think.” 

Miss Milnathort shook her head. She made no further 
reply ; and there was a little mterval of silence which Wal- 
ter made no attempt to break. What could he say? It was 
impossible, and yet he had no real scepticism to oppose to 
this strange story. In words, in mind, he could not allow 
that either of them were more than deceived, but in himself 
he had no doubt on the subject. His intelligence was easily 
convinced indeed that to attribute the events that happened 
to him to supernatural influence was in contradiction to 
everything he had ever been taught, and that it was super- 
stition alone which could invest the mysterious inhabitant 
of Kinloch Houran with power to act upon his mind across 
great seas and continents, or to set any occult forces to work 
for that purpose. Superstition beyond all ^excuse ; and yet 
he was as thoroughly convinced of it in ‘the depths of his 
being as he was defiant' on the surface. There was perfect 
silence in the room where these two sat together with a 
sense of fellowship and sympathy. As for Lord Erradeen, 
he had no inclination to say anything more. It was impos- 
sible, incredible, contrary to everything he believed: and 
yet it was true : and he did not feel the contradiction was 
anything extraordinary, anything to be protested against in 
this curious calm of exhaustion in which he was. While he 
sat thus quite silent Miss Milnathort began to speak. 

“Thirty year^ ago,” she said, “there was a young Lord 
Erradeen that was something like yourself! He w'as a dis- 
tant cousin once, that never thought to come to the title. 
He was betrothed* when he was poor to a young girl of his 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


263 

own condition in life. When he became Lord Erradeen he 
was bidden to ffive her up, and he refused. Oh, if he had 
lived he would have broken the spell! He would not give 
up his love. I will not say that he was not terribly beaten 
down and broken with what he heard and saw, and what he 
had to bear ; but he never said a word to me of what was the 
chief cause. When the summons came he got us all to go to 
^ee the old castle, and perhaps, with a little bravado to prove 
that he would never, never yield. How it was that 1 was 
left alone I can never remember, for my head was battered 
and stupid, and it was long, long, before I got the command 
of my senses again. It was most likely when Walter (he 
was Walter too ; it is the great Methven name) was attend- 
ing to the others, my brother and my mother, who was liv- 
ing then. I was a romantic bit girlie, and fond of beautiful 
views and all such things. When I was standing upon the 
old wall, there suddenly came forward to speak to me a 

f rand gentleman. I thought I had never seen such a one 
efore. You have seen him and you know ; often and often 
have I thought I have seen him since. And it may be that 
I have,” she said pausing suddenly. It was perhaps the in- 
terruption in the soft flowing of her voice that startled Wal- 
ter. He made a sudden movement in his chair, and looked 
round him as if he too felt another spectator standing by. 

“ I am not frightened now,” said the invalid with her calm 
little voice, “ lying here so long putting things together I 
am frightened no more. Sometimes I am sorry for himj and 
think that it is not all ill that is in that burdened spirit. 1 
have taken it upon me even.” she said, folding her little, 
worn hands, “ to say a word about him now and then when 
I say my prayers. I never thought at that time that he was 
anything more than the grandest gentleman I ever saw. He 
began to speak to me about my engagement, and if I thought 
of the harm I was doing W alter, and that it was his duty to 
think of the family above all. It was like death to hear it, 
but I had a great deal of spirit in those days, and I argued 
with him. I said it was better for the family that he should 
marry me, than marry nobody— and that I had no right to 
take my troth from him. Then he began to argue too. He 
said that to sacrifice was always best, that I could not love 
him if I would not give up everything for him. It might 
have been scripture. What could I answer to that ? I was 
just dazed by it, and stood and looked in his face ; he looked 
like a prophet of God, and he said I should give up my love, 
if I knew what true love was. I have little doubt I would 
have done it, after that; but just then my Walter’s voice 
sounded up from where he was, calling out to me. ‘ Where 
are you, wnere are you ! nothing can be done without you,’ 
he cried. Oh, how well I remember the sound of his voice 
filling all the air ! I turned round and I said, ‘ No, no, how, 


264 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


can I break his heart’— wheji there came an awful chaise 
upon the face you know. His eyes flared like a great light, 
he made a step forward as if he would have seized me with 
his hands. And then terror took hold of me, a kind of hor- 
rible panic. They say I must have started back. I mind 
nothing more for months and months.” the soft little voice 
said. ^ 

The young man listened to this strange tragedy with 
an absorbed and wondering interest; and the sufferer lay 
smiling at him in a kind of naif childlike, half angelic calm. 
One would have said she had grown no older since that day ; 
and yet had lived for long ages with her little crushed frame 
and heart. He was overawed by the simplicity of the tale. 
He said after a pause, “And Walter— how did it end ?” 

For a moment she did not say anything, but lay smiling, 
not looking at him. At last she answered softly with a great 
gravity coming over her face — “ Lord Erradeen, after some 
years and many struggles, married the heiress of the Glen 
Oriel family, and brought a great deal of property to the 
house. He was to me like an angel from heaven. And his 
heart was broken. But how could I help him, lying crushed 
and broken here ? What he did was well. It was not the 
best he could have done ; because, you see he could not give 
his heart’s love again, and that is essential ; but he did no 
harm. There was just an ending of it for one generation 
when I fell over yon wall. And his son died young, without 
ever coming to the age to bear the brunt, and the late lord, 
poor man, was just confused from the commencement, and 
never came to any good.” 

“What is the best he could have done?” 

She turned to him with a little eagerness. “ I have no in- 
struction,” she said. “ I have only the sense that comes with 
much thinking and putting things together, if it is sense. I 
have lain here and thought it over for years and years, both 
in the night when everybody was sleeping, and in the day 
when they were all thinking of their own concerns. I think 
one man, alone will never overcome that man we know. He 
is too much for you. If T have gleaned a little in my weak- 
ness, think what he must have found out in all these years. 
But I think if there were two, that were but one— two tha-- 
had their hearts set upon what was good only, and would 
not listen to the evil part — I think before them he would lose 
}iis strength ; he could do no more. But oh, how hard to be 
like that and to And the other. I am afraid you are far, far 
from it. Lord Erradeen.” 

“Call me Walter — like my predecessor,” he said. 

“ You are not like him. He was never soiled with the 
world. His mind was turned to everything that was good. 
And me, though I v/as but a small thing, I had it in me to 
stand by him. Two souls that are one ! I am thinking and 


THE WIZARDS SOH, 


265 


I have had a long, long time to think in— that this is what 
is wanted to free the race from that bondage.” 

“ Do you mean — that there has never been such a pair to 
do what you say ?” 

“ Perhaps it is that there never has been a cripple creature 
like me,” she said with a smile, “ to find it out. And at the 
best it is just a guess of mine. I have thought of everything 
else, but I can find norhing that will do. If you will think,” 
however,” said Miss Milnathort, “ you will find it no such 
light thing. Two of one mind— and that one mind set intent 
upon good, not evil. They will have to know. They will 
have to understand. The woman might miss it for want of 
knowing. She would have to be instructed in the whole mys- 
tery, ana set her mind to it as well as the man. Do you think 
that is too easy? No, oh no, it is not so very easy, Lord Er- 
radeen.” 

“It would be impossible to me,” said Walter with keen 
emotion, “ my mind is not intent upon good. What I am in- 
tent on is — I don’t know that there is anything I am intent 
on : except to pass the time and have my own way.” 

Miss Milnathort looked at him with the seriousness whic^ 
changed the character of her face. “ He that says that,” she 
said, ‘ is near mending it Lord Erradeen.” 

“ Do you think so ? ” he cried with a harsh little laugh, 

“ then I nave something to teach you still, ignorant as I am. 
To know you are wrong, alas ! is not the same as being on 
the way to mend it. I nave known that of myself for years, 
but I have never changed. If I had to decide a hundred 
times I will do just the same, take what I like best.” 

She looked at him wonderingly, folding her hands. 

“I think you must be doing yourself injustice”’ she said. 

“It is you that do human nature more than justice,” said 
Walter ; “ you judge bv what you know, by yourself, who like 
what is good best; but I— don’t do so. It is true— to know 
wLat is good does not make one like it, as you think. It is 
not a mistake of judgment, it is a mistake of the heart. 

“ Oh, my deaf,’’ said the poor lady, “ you must be wring- 
ing yourself ; your heart is tender and good, your eyes filled 
when I was telling you. I have seen that when there was 
any talk of fine and generous things, your eyes have filled 
and your countenance changed. You have forgotten by 
times, and been turned away from the right way ; but you 
will not tell me that, looking it in the face, you prefer what 
is wrong. Oh no. Lord Erradeen, no, no.” _ 

“Perhaps,” he said, “ I never look anything in the face ; 
that may be the reason or part of the reason ; but the fact 
is that I do not prefer good because it is good. Oh no, I can- 
not deceive you. To be fully convinced that one is wrong is 
very little argument against one’s habits, and the life wi at 
one likes. It does not seem worth while to test small matters 


266 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


by such a big standard, and, indeed, one does not test them 
at all, but does— what happens to come in one’s way at the 
moment.” 

A shade of trouble came over the soft little face. She 
looked up wondering and disturbed at the young man who 
sat smiling won her, with a smile that was half scorn, half 
sympathy. The scorn, perhaps, was for himself ; he made 
no pretence to himself of meaning better^ or wishing to do 
better than his performance. And Miss Milnathort’s distress 
was great. 

“ 1 thought,” she said, faltering, “ that the truth had but 
to be ^een, how good it is, and every heart would own it. 
Oh, my young lord, you have no call to be like one of the 
careless that never think at all. You are forced to think : 
and when you see that your weirdless way leads to nothing 
but subjection and bondage, and that the good is your salva- 
tion, as well for this world as the world to come ” 

“ Does not every man know that ? ” cried Walter. “ Is it 
not instinctive in us to know that if we behave badly, the 
consequences’ will be bad one way or another? There is 
scarcely a fool in the world that does not know that— but 
T^^hat difference does it make ? You must find some stronger 
argument. That is your innocence,” he said, smiling at her. 

At that moment the young man, with his experiences 
which were of a nature so different from hers, felt himself 
far more mature and learned in human nature than she; 
and she,, who knew at once so much and so little, was abashed 
by this strange lesson. She looked at him with a deprecating 
anxious look, not knowing what to say. 

“ It the victory is to be by means of two whose heart is 
set on good, it will never be,” said Walter with a sigh, “in 
my time. I will struggle and yield, and yield and strug.gle 
again, like those that have gone before me, and then, like 
them, pass away, and leave it to somebody else who will be 
hunted out from the corners of the earth as I was. And so, 
tor all I can tell, it will go on for ever.” 

Here he made a pause, and another tide of feeling stole 
over hipi* . If I were a better man,” he said with a changed 
look, I think 1 know where— the other— might be found.” 

Miss Milnathort s soft, aged, childish countenance cleared, 
the wistiul look vanished from her eyes, her smile came 
1 ‘aised herself up among her pillows as if she 
would have sat upright. 

u young lord ! and does she love you like that ? ” 

she cried. 

u ^he blood rush to his face : he put un his 

hanus as it to stop the injurious thought. “Love me! ” he 
criGCi, 

tt^T^ altogether new to him. 

He had thought of Oona often, and wondered what was the 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


267 

meaning of that softness in her eyes as she looked after him; 
but his thoughts had never ventured so far as this. He grew 
red, and then he grew pale. 

“It is a profanity,’^ he said. “How could she think of 
me at all ? I was a stranger, and she was sorry for me. She 
gave me her hand, and strength came out of it. But if such 
a woman as that — stood by a true man — Pah ! I am not a 
true man ; I am a wretched duffer, and good for nothing. 
And Oona thinks as much of me, as little of me as— as little 
as— she thinks of any pitiful, unworthy thing.” 

He got up from his chair as he spoke, and began to pace 
about the room in an agitation whicn made his blood swell 
in his veins. He was already in so excitable a state that 
this new touch seemed to spread a sort of conflagration 
everywhere ; his imagination, his heart, all the wishes and 
hopes — that “ indistinguishable throng ” that lie dormant so 
often, waiting a chance touch to bring them to life— all blazed 
into consciousness in a moment. He who had flirted to 
desperation with Julia Herbert, who had been on the point 
of asking Katie Williamson to marry, was it possible all the 
time that Oona, and she only, had been the one Avoman in 
the world for him? He remembered how she had come 
before his thoughts at those moments when he had almost 
abandoned himself to the current which was carrying his 
heeclless steps away. When he had thought of her standing 
upon the bank on her isle, looking after him with indefinable 
mystery and wistful softness in her eyes, all the other objects 
of his various pursuits had filled him with disgust. He said 
to himself, in the excitement of the moment, that it was this 
w.hich had again and again stooped him and made his plea- 
sures, his follies, revolting to him. This was the origin of 
his restlessness, his sometimes savage temper, his fierce im- 
patience with himself and everybody around him. In fact, 
this was far from the reality of the case ; but in the flood of 
new sensation that poured over him, it bore a flattering 
resemblance to truth, which dignified the caprice of his ex- 
istence, and made him feel himself better than he had 
thought. If love had, indeed, done all this for him, strug- 
gling against every vulgar influence, must it not, then, be 
capable of mubh more— indeed, of all ? 

'Meanwhile Miss Milnathort lay back upon her pillows, 
excited, yet pleased and soothed, and believing too that here 
was all she had wished for, the true love and the helping 
woman who might yet save Erradeen. 

“ Oona ! ” she said to herself, “ it’s a well-omened, name.” 

This strange scene of sentiment, rising into passion, was 
changed by the sudden entry of Mr. Milnathort, whose brow 
was by no means so cloudless or his heart so soft as his 
sister’s. He came in, severe in the consciousness of business 
neglected, and all the affairs of life arrested by the boyish 


268 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


folly, idleness, and perhaps vice of this young man, with 
endless arrears of censure to bestow upon him, and of de- 
mands to place before him. 

“ I am glad to see you, my Lord Erradeen,” he said briefly. 
“ I have bidden them put forward the dinner, that we may 
have a long evening; and your things are in your room, and 
your man waiting. Alison, you forget when you keep Lord 
Erradeen talking that he has come olf a journey and must 
be tired.” 

Walter had not intended to spend the night in Moray 
Place, and indeed had given orders to his servant to take 
rooms in one of the hotels, and convey his luggage thither ; 
but he forgot all this now, and took his way instinctively up 
another flight of those tall stairs to the room which he had 
occupied before. It brought him to himself, however, with 
the most curious shock of surprise and consternation, when 
he recognized not the servant whom he had brought with 
him, but old Symington, as precise and serious as ever, and 
looking as if there had been no break in his punctilious ser- 
vice. He was arranging his master’s clothes just as he had 
done on the winter evening when Lord Erradeen had first 
been taken possession of by this zealous retainer of the 
family. Walter was so startled, bewildered, and almost 
overawed by this sudden apparition, that he said with a 
gasp, 

“You here, Symington! ” and made no further objection 
to his presence. 

“ It is just me, my lord,” Symington said. “ I was waiting 
at the station, though your lordship might not observe me. 
I just went with your lad to the hotel, and put him in good 
hands.” 

“ And may I ask why you did that without consulting 
me; and what you are doing here?” Walter cried with a 
gleam of rising spirit. 

Symington looked at him with a sort of respectful con- 
tempt. 

'And does your lordship think,” he said, “ that it would 
be befitting to take a young lad, ignorant of the family, up 
yonder f ” With a slight pause of indignant, yet gentle re- 
proach after these words, he added — “Will* your lordship 
wear a white tie or a black ? ” with all the gravity that be- 
came the question. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

There is in the winter season, when the stream of tourists 
is cut off, a sort of family and friendly character about the 
Highland railway. The travellers in most cases know each 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


269 

other by sight, if no more ; and consult over a new comer 
with the curiosity of a homely community, amid which a new 
figure passing in the street excites sentiments of wonder and 
interest as a novelty. “ Who do you suppose that will be at 
this time of the year ? ” they say ; and the little country sta- 
tions are full of greetings, and everybody is welcomed who 
comes, and attended by kindly farewells who goes away. 
There was no doubt this time as to who Lord Erradeen was 
as he approached the termination of his journey ; and when 
he had reached the neighborhood of the loch, a bustle of 
guards and porters— that is to say, of the one guard belong- 
ing to the train, and the one porter belonging to the station, 
familiarly known by name to all the passengers— ushered up 
to the carriage in which he was seated the beaming presence 
of Mr. Williamson. 

“ So here ye are,” said the millionaire. “ Lord Erradeen ! 
I. told Tammas he must be making a mistake.” 

“Na, na, I was making no mistake,” said Tammas, in a 
parenthesis. 

“ And what have ye been making of yourself all this 
time?” Mr. Williamson went on. “We have often talked 
of ye, and wondered if we would see ye again. That was a 
very sudden parting that we took in London ; but Katie is 
just a wilful monkey, and does what she pleases; but she 
will be well pleased, and so will I, to see you at Birkenbraes.” 
And the good man took his place beside the new comer, and 
talked tohim with the greatest cordiality during the rest of 
the journey. 

Thus Walter was received on his second arrival with the 
friendly familiarity natural to the countryside. There 
seemed to him something significant even in the change of 
association with which his visit began. He had to promise 
to present himself at once at Birkenbraes, and the very prom- 
ise seemed, to revive the feelings and purposes which had 
been growing in his mind during that interval of social suc- 
cess in London which, on the whole, had been the most com- 
fortable period of his life since he came to his fortune. His 
mind was occupied by this as he was rowed once more round 
the half ruined pile of Kinloch Houran to his renewed trial. • 
The afternoon was bright and clear, one of those brilliant 
October days that add a glory of color to the departing sum- 
mer; the water reflected every tint of the ruddy woods, ^ 
thrown up and intensified everywhere by the dark back- 
ground of the firs. He thought of the encounter before him 
with a fierce repugnance and indignation, rebellious but im- 
potent ; but there were no longer in it those elements of ap- 
prehension and mystery which had occupied all his being 
when he came here for the first time ; and the other circum- 
stances of his life had room to come in with even a certain 
seductive force in the midst of his excitement. Something 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


270 

swept the current of his thoughts towards Katie, with a 
secret impulse, as the water of the loch was swept by some 
force unseen into the current which the boatmen avoided 
with such care. Walter did not avoid the spiritual stream ; 
he allowed himself to be carried away upon it, with a grate- 
ful sense of reconciliation to fate. Katie would smooth 
away his difficulties, though not in the way Miss Milnathort 
suggested. She would brmg him peace at least for the mo- 
ment. He had proved himself very little able to contend 
with the influence which swayed his race ; all that he had 
done hitherto had been to run away from it, to make what 
endeavor he could to forget itj to avoid the tyranny that 
overshadowed him by abandoning all his duties. But this 
was not a thing which he could do for ever. And the mo- 
ment had come when some other course must be decided upon. 

This time it was clear he must make up his mind either to 
conquer the mysterious power which ne could no longer 
ignore— or persuade himself to consider it a delusion— or to 
yield to it altogether. He had listened to Miss Milnathort’s 
suggestion with a momentary elevation of mind and hope ; 
but what was he, a “ miserable duffer ” as he had truly called 
himself, to make such an effort? A heart set for good and 
not evil : he laughed to himself with contemptuous bitter- 
ness, when he thought how far this description W’as from any- 
thing he knew of himself. Thus it was from the outset impos- 
sible that the redemption of his race could be carried out by 
him. The only alternative then was to yield. Was it the 
only alternative? To conduct his own affairs only as the 
tool and instrument of another, to sacrifice affection, justice, 
pityj every generous feeling to the aggrandizement of his 
family— Waiter’s heart rose up within him in violent refusal 
and defiance. And then he tnought of Katie Williamson. 
The storms in his bosom had been quieted from the moment 
when he had come into contact with her, The evil circum- 
stances around him had changed j even now a lull came over 
his mind at the thought of her. it was not the highest or the 
best course of action. At the utmost it would only be to leave 
once more to those who should come after him the solution 
of the problem ; but what had he to do with those that came 
after him, he asked himself bitterly ? In all probability it 
would be a stranger, a distant cousin, some one unknown 
to him as, he had been to his predecessor ; and in the mean- 
time he would have peace. As he thought of it, it seemed to 
him that there was something significant even in that meet- 
ing, Avith Mr. Williamson. When he came to the loch for 
the first time, with high hopes and purposes in his mind, 
meaning to leave all the frivolities of life behind him and 
address himself nobly to the duties of his new and noble po- 
sition, it Avas Oona Forrester whom he had encounted un- 
aA^ares on the threshold of fate . All the circumstances of his 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


271 

intercourse with her flashed through his mind ; the strange 
scene on the isle in which her touch, her presence, her moral 
support, had saved him from he knew not what, from a final 
encounter in which, alone, he must have been overthrown. 
Had he not been a coward then and fled, had he remained 
and, with that soft strong hand in his, defied all that the 

g owers of darkness could do, how different might have been 
is position now ! But he had not chosen that better part. 
He had escaped and postponed the struggle. He had allowed 
all better thoughts and purposes to slip from him into the 
chaos of a disordered life. And now that he was forced back 
again to encounter once more this tyranny from which he 
had fled, it was no longer Oona that met him. Who was he 
to expect that Opna would meet him, that the angels would 
come again to his succor ? He could not now make that sud- 
den unhesitating appeal to her which he had made in his 
first need, and to which she had so bravely replied. Every- 
thing was different ; he had forfeited the position on which 
he could confront his tyrant. But a compromise was very 
possible, and a staving off of trouble, was in Katie William- 
son’s hand. 

It is needless to enter into all the sensations and thoughts 
with which the young man took possession again of the 
rooms in which he had spent the most extraordinary crisis of 
his life. It was still daylight when he reached Kinloch 
Houran, and the first thing he did was to make a stealthy 
and cautious examination of his sitting-room, looking into 
every crevice in an accidental sort of way, concealing eWn 
from himself the scrutiny in which he was* engaged. Could 
he have found any trace of the sliding panel or secret en- 
trance so dear to romance, it would have consoled him ; but 
one side , of the room was the outer wall, another was the 
modern partition which separated it from his bedroom, and 
of the others one was fillea up with the bookshelves which 
he had been examining when his visitor entered on the pre- 
vious occasion, while the fourth was the wall of the corridor 
wliich led into the ruinous part of the castle, and had not a 
possibility of any opening in it. 

He made these researches by intervals, pretending mo- 
tives to himself, but with the strangest sense that he was 
making himself ridiculous, and exposing himself to con- 
temptuous laughter, though so far as his senses were cog- 
nizant there was nobody there either to see or to laugh. The 
night, however, passed with perfect trammillity, and in the 
morning he set out early on his way to Birkenbraes. The 
morning was gray and cold, the hills shrouded in mist as he 
rowed himself across to the other side of the loch. There 
were horses and carriages awaiting him at Auchnasheen, 
had he cared to take advantage of them ; but the house in 
which he had suffered so much was odious to him, and he 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


272 

preferred to walk. To an excited and disturbed mind there 
IS nothing so soothing as bodily exercise. Walter went 
along very quickly as if trying to keep up with the pace 
of his thoughts ; but there was one spot upon which he came 
to a sudden pause. The road, as became a Highland road, 
was full of variety, going up and down, now penetrating 
through clumps of wood, now emerging into full vieAv of the 
surrounding landscape. He had skirted the “ policies ” of 
Auchnasheen, behind which the high road lay, and climbed 
the rising ground beyond, when suddenly the path came out 
once more on the side of the loch, and he saw rising out of 
the gleaming water below, the feathery crest of the Isle with 
the roofs of the lonely house showing through the branches. 
Walter stopped with a sudden pang of mingled' delight and 
pain; he stood as if he had been rooted to the ground. 
There it lay on the surface of the loch, dimly reflected, over- 
hung by low skies, hanging in gray suspense between the 
dull neaven and dark water. There was no wind to ruffle 
the trees, or shake off the autumn leaves wfflich made a sort 
of protest in their brilliant colors against the half tones of 
the scene. A line of blue smoke rose into the still air, the 
solitary sign of life, miless indeed that gleam of red on the 
rocks was the shirt of Hamish, Ashing as he had been a year 
ago when Arst Lord Erradeen set foot upon that hospitable 
spot. After a while he thought even he could see a Agure 
before the door looking up the loch towards Kinloch Hour an. 
The young man for the moment was transported out of him- 
self. Dona ! ” he cried, stretching out his hands to the va- 
cant air which neither heard nor replied. His heart went 
out of his bosom towards that house in which he had been 
sheltered in his direst need. Tears gathered into his eyes as 
he stood and gazed. There was salvation ; there w^as love, 
and hope, and deliverance— Two, that should be one. He 
seemed to feel once more in his own the touch of that pure 
and soft hand “as soft as snow,” the touch which gave nim 
the strength of two souls, and one so spotless, so strong, and 
simple, and true. He stood holding out his hands iii an in- 
stinctive appeal to her wfflo neither saw nor knew. For a 
moment his life once more hung in the balance. Then with 
a stamp of his foot, and a sense of impatience and humilia- 
tion indescribable in words he turned and pursued his w^ay. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The party at Birkenbraes was always large. There were, 
in the Arst place, many people staying in the house, for Mr. 
Williamson was hospitable in the largest sense of the word, 
and opened his liberal doors to everybody that pleased him, 


THE WIZARD'S SON^ 


273 


and was ready to provide everything that might he wanted 
for the pleasure of his guests— carriages, horses, boats, even 
special trains on the railway, not to speak of the steam- 
yacht that lay opposite the house, and made constant trips 
up and down the loch. His liberality had sometimes an air 
01 ostentation, or rather of that pleasure which very rich 
persons often take in the careless exhibition of a lavish ex- 
penditure, which dazzles and astonishes those to whom close 
reckonings are necessary. He had a laugh, which, though per- 
fectly good-naturedj seemed to have a certain derision in it of 
the precautions which others took, as he gave his orders. 
“ Lord, man, take a special ! — what need to hurry ? I will send 
and order it to be in waiting. I have my private carriage, ye 
see, on the railway — always at the use 01 my friends.” And 
then he would laugh, as much as to say, What a simple thing 
this is— the easiest in the world ! If ye were not all a poor, 
little, cautious set of people, you would do the same. Not 
afford it ? Pooh ! a bagatelle like that ! All this was in the 
laugh, which was even more eloquent than la langiie Ttirque 
There were sure to be some sensitive people who did not like 
it ; but they were very hard to please. And the rich man 
was in fact so truly kind and willing to make everybody 
comfortable, that the most sensible even of the sensitive peo- 
ple forgave him. And as the majority in society is not sen- 
sitive when its own advantage and pleasure is concerned, 
his house was always full of visitors, among whom he moved 
briskly, always pleased, always endeavoring to elicit the ex- 
pression of a wish which he could satisfy. Katie took less 
trouble. She was less conscious of being rich. She was will- 
ing to share all her own advantages, but it did not appear to 
her, as to her father, half so ridiculous that other people 
should not be rich. The house was always full of visitors 
staying there, and there was not a day that there were not 
neighbors dropping in to lunch or invited to dinner keeping 
up a commotion which delighted Mr. Williamson and amused 
Katie, who was to the manner born, and understood life only 
in this way. It happened thus that it was into a large party 
that Walter, coming with a sense that he was under the do 
minion of fate, and was about to settle the whole tenor of his 
life, plunged unaware. He heard the sound of many voices 
before he had got near the great drawing-room, the door ot 
which stood open, giving vent to the murmur of talk from 
about twenty people within. He had scarcely ever gone up 
so magnificent a staircase, broad, and light, and bright as be- 
came a new palace, with footmen moving noiselessly upon 
the thick pile of the c^^rpets. 

“ There is a party, I suppose?” he said, hesitating. 

“ No more than usual, my lord,” said the elegant func- 
tionary in black, who was about to announce him, with a 
bland and soft smile of superiority and a little pity like his 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


274 

master’s for the man who knew no better, “ Two or three 
gentlemen have dropped in to lunch.” 

The drawing-room was a large room, with a huge round 
bow-wmdow giving upon the loch. It was furnished and 
decorated in the most approved manner, with quantities of 
pretty things of every costly description ; for Katie, like her 
lather, betrayed the constitution and temperament of wealth 
by loving cost almost more than beauty. She was, however, 
too well instructed to be led into the mistake of making that 
luxurious modern room into the semblance of anything an- 
cient or faded, while Mr. Williamson was too fond 6f every- 
thing bright and fresh to be persuaded even by fashion into 
such an anachronism. There was a faint suspicion in the 
mirrors and gilding and all the conveniences and luxuries, 
of the style of grandeur peculiar to the saloon of a splendid 
steamer, to which the steam-yacht, which was the chief ob- 
ject in the immediate prospect as seen from the plate-glass 
window, gave additional likelihood. Walter for his part was 
strangely startled, when, out of the seriousness of his own 
lonely thoughts, and the sense of having arrived at a great 
crisis, he suddenly stepped into the flutter and talk of this 
large assembly, in which some half-dozen neighbors on the 
loch, most of them young men in more or less attendance 
upon Katie, mingled with strangers of all classes whom Mr. 
Williamson had picked up here and there. There was a lit- 
tle pause in the hum of voices at his own name, and a slight 
stir of interest, various of the guests turning round to look 
as he came in. The master 01 the house advanced with a 
large hand held out, and an effusive welcome : but the little 
lady of Birkenbraes paid Walter the much greater compli- 
ment of pursuing her conversation undisturbed, without be- 
traying hy a movement that she knew he was there. Katie 
was not rude. It was not her habit to pay so little attention 
to a newcomer ; she was profoundly conscious of his entrance 
and of every step he made among the groups distributed 
about ; but as the matter was a little serious and his appear- 
ance of some importance, she showed a slight stir of mind 
and thoughts, which could scarcely be called agitation, in 
this way. It was only when her father called loudly, 
“ Katie, Katie, do you not see Lord Erradeen ? ” that slie 
turned, not moving from her place, and suddenly held out 
her hand with a smile. 

“ How do you do? I heard you had come,” said Katie ; 
and then returned to her talk. “As for the influence of 
scenery upon the mind of the common people, I think it has 
more influence in the Highlands than anywhere, but very 
little when all is said. You don’t think much of what you 
see every day, unless, indeed, you think everything 01 it. 
You must be totally indifferent, or an enthusiast,” said the 
philosophical young lady. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


275 


Walter meanwhile stood before her, almost awkwardly, 
feeling the rigidity upon his countenance of a somewhat un- 
meaning smile. 

“ And to which class does Miss Williamson belong ? ” said 
her companion, who was a virtuous young member of par- 
liament, anxious to study national peculiarities wherever he 
might happen lo be. 

To neither,” said Katie, with a slight coldness, just 
enough to mark that she did not consider herself as one of 
the “common people.” And she turned to Walter with 
eQ[ually marked meaning, “ Have you seen the Forresters 
since you came. Lord Erradeen ? ” 

“ I have seen no one,” said Walter, somewhat astonish ed^ 
and wondering, whether any one could have seen and already 
betrayed his pause and instinctive exclamation when he 
came in sight of the isle. “ I came only last night, and am 

here to-day by your father’s invitation ” 

“ I know,” said Katie, with greater cordiality. “ You 
speak as if I wanted you to account for yourself. Oh, no ! 
only one must begin the conversation somehow— unless I 
plunged you at once into my discussion with Mr. Braith- 
waite (Mr. Braithwaite, Lord Erradeen) about the character- 
istics of the inhabitants of a mountain country. Do you feel 
up to it ? ” she added, with a laugh. 

“ But you avoid the question,” said the member of parlia- 
ment. “You say ‘ neither.’ Kow, if it is interesting to know 
what effect these natural phenomena have upon the common 
mind, it is still more interesting when it is a highly cultivated 
intelligence which is in question.” 

“ Help me out ! ” cried Katie, with a glance at Walter. “ I 
have never been educated— no woman is, you know. ^ How 
are we to know what the highly cultured feel ? Papa is not 
cultured at all— he does not pretend to it, which is why 
people approve of him ; and as for me ! ” she spread out her 
nands like a sort of exclamation. “ And Lord Erradeen can- 
not give you any information either,” she added, demurely, 
“ for he has not known the loch very long — and I think He 
does not like it. Ko, but you shall see one who can really be of 
some use this afternoon. Don’t you think she is the very 
person. Lord Erradeen? Oona — for she has lived on the 
lock, or rather in the loch, all her life.” 

“ And when shall I see this— nymph is she, or water-god- 
dess ? ” said the genial member. “ That will indeed be to 
gather knowledge at the fountain head.” 

“ Do you think we may say she is a nymph. Lord Erra- 
deen ? Oh yes — what do you call those classical ladies that 
take care of the water — Naiads ? Oona is something of that 
sort. But better than the classics, for she has water above 
and water below for a great part, of the year. You don’t 
knoAv how many superstitions we have remaining in this 


THE WIZARD^S SON. 


276 

wild part of the country. We have ghosts and wandering 
jews, and' mysterious lights; Lord Erradeen will tell 
you ” 

Katie paused with the malice bright in her eyes. She did 
not mean to affront the recovered attendant who might turn 
out a suitor, and upon whom it was possible she might be 
induced to smile ; so she paused with a little laugh, and al- 
lowed Braithwaite to break in. 

“ Do you call this a wild part of the country, Miss Wil- 
liamson ? Then what must the cultivated portions look like ? 
I see nothing but beautiful villas and palaces, and all the 
luxuries of art.” 

“ The comforts of the Saut Market,” said Katie with a 
shrug of her shoulders. “It is more easy to carry them 
about with you than in Bailie Nicol Jarvie’s time. But there 
is luncheon! Papa is always formal about our going in, 
though I tell him that is out of date nowadays. So you must 
wait, if you please. Lord Erradeen, and take me.” There 
was then a pause, until, as they brought up the rear of the 
procession downstairs, Katie said, with the slightest pres- 
sure on his arm to call his attention, “ That is a Member of 
Parliament in search of information and statistics. If you 
hear me talk more nonsense than usual you will know wny.” 

“Do you expect Miss Forrester this afternoon?” asked 
Walter quite irrelevant. 

Katie’s heart gave a little jump. She did not like to be 
beat. It was the healthful instinct of emulation, not any 
tremor of the affections. She gave him a keen glance half 
of anger, half of enjoyment, for she loved a fray. 

“ Better than that,” she cried gayly, “ we are going down 
the loch to see her. Don’t you remember Mrs. Forrester’s 
scones. Lord Erradeen ? You are ungrateful, for I know you 
have eaten them. But you shall come, too.” 

If this had been said on the stairs, Walter, probably, 
would have given a dignified answer to the effect that h’is 
engagements would scarcely permit— but they were by this 
time in the dining-room in the little flutter of taking places 
which always attends the sitting down of a party, an opeiw 
tion which Katie, with little rapid indications of her plea- 
sure, simplified at once; and Walter found himself seated 
by her side and engaged in conversation by the enterprising 
Braithwaite at his other hand before he could utter any re- 
monstrance. Mr. Braithwaite set it down in his journal that 
Lord Erradeen was a dull young fellow, petted by the women 
because he Avas a lord, no other reason being apparent— and 
wondered a little at the bad taste of Miss Williamson Avho 
ought to have knoAvn better. As for Katie, she exerted her- 
self to smooth down Walter’s slightly ruffled plumes. There 
was no use, she thought, in handing him over at once to 
Oona by thus wounding his amour propre. She inquired 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


277 

into his travels. She asked where he had disappeared when 
they all left town. 

I expected we should find you at Auchnasheen for the 
12th,” she said. “You are the only man 1 know who is 
philosopher enough not to care for the grouse. One is driven 
to believe about that time of the year that men can think of 
nothing else.” 

“ Perhaps, Katie,” said young Tom of Eller more, “ if you 
were to speak to Lord Erradeen, whom we don’t know as 
yet, as we have never had the chance of calling ” (here the 
young men exchanged bows, acconmanied by a murmur 
from KatiOj “Mr. Tom Campbell, Ellermore,” while the 
color rose in young Tom’s cheek) “ perhaps he would be 
charitable to us others that are not philosophers.” 

“ Have ye not enough grouse of your own, Tom Camp- 
bell?” cried Mr. Williamson, who, in a pause of the conver- 
sation, had heard this address. “ Man, if I were you, I would 
think shame to look a bird in the face.” 

“And why?” cried the youn^ fellow; “that was what 
they were made for. Do you tnink otherwise that they 
would be allowed to breed like that, and eat up everything 
that grows?” 

“ Heather,” said the head of the house, “ and bracken. 
Profitable crops, my word ! ” 

Here Walter interrupted the discussion by a polite speech 
to young Tom whose eyes blazed with pleasure and excite- 
ment at the offer made him. 

“ But I hope,” he said, “ yon will join us yourself. It 
will be like stealing a pleasure to have such ah enjoyment, 
and the master of it not there.” 

“I have other work in hand,” Walter said; at which 
young Tom stared and colored still more, and a slight move- 
ment showed itself along the table, which Mr. Braithwaite, 
the knowledge-seeker, being newly arrived, did not under- 
stand. Tom cried hastily, “I beg your pardon,” and many 
eyes were turned with sudden interest upon Lord Erradeen. 
But this was what Walter had anticipated as little as the 
parliamentary inquirer. He grew so red that Tom Camp- 
bell’s healthy blush was thrown into the shade. “ I ought 
rather to say,” he added hastily, “ that my time here is too 
short for amusement.” 

There was an uneasy little pause, and then everybody 
burst into talk. Both the silence and the conversation were 
significant. Lord Erradeen turned to Katie with an instinc- 
tive desire for sympathy, but Katie v/as occupied or pre- 
tended to be so, with her luncheon. It was not here that 
symnathy on that point was to be found. 

“1 wonder,” said Katie, Somewhat coldly, “ that you do 
not remain longer when you are here. Auchnasheen is very 
nice, and you ought to know your neighbors, don’t you think. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


278 

Lord Erradeen ? If it is merely business, or duty, that brings 
you ” 

“ I wish I knew which it was,” he said in a low tone. 

Katie turned and looked at him with those eyes of com- 
mon-sense in which there is always a certain cynicism. 

“ I did not think in this century,” she said, “ that it was 
possible for any man not to know why he was doing a thing ; 
but you perhaps like to think that an old family has rules of 
its own, and ought to keep up the past.” 

“ I should think,” said Mr. Braithwaite, not discouraged 
by the lower tone of this conversation, “ that the past must 
have a very strong hold upon any one who can suppose him- 
self a Highland chieftain.” 

“A Highland chief!” cried Katie, opening her brown 
eyes wide: and then she laughed, which was a thing 
strangely offensive to Walter, though he could scarcely have 
told why. 

I fear,” he said coldly, “ that though I am to some extent 
a Highland laird, I have no pretension to be a chief. There 
is no clan Methven that I ever heard of : though indeed I 
am myself almost a stranger and of no authority.” 

‘•Mrs. Forrester will tell you, Mr. Braithwaite,” said 
Katie. “ She is a sort of queen of the loch. She is one of 
the old Macnabs who once were sovereign here. These 
people,” she said, waving her hand towards the various 
scions of the great clan Campbell, “ are mushrooms in com- 
parison : which is a comfort to our feelings, seeing that we 
sink into msignificance as creatures of to-day before them. 
The very original people are highly consolatory to the up- 
starts, for we are ,iust much the same as the middling-old 
people to them. They are worlds above us all.” 

Here Tom of Ellermore leant over his immediate neigh- 
bors and reminded Katie that the days were short in October, 
and Biat it was a stiff row to the isle : and the conversation 
terminated in the hurried retirement of the ladies, and 
selection of rugs and wrappers to make them comfortable. 
Mr. Williamson had, as he said, “ more sense,” than to set 
out upon any such ridiculous expedition. He stood and 
watched the preparations with his thumbs stuck into the 
irmholes of his waistcoat. 

“ Ye had much better take the yacht,” he said. ‘‘ She 
could get up steam in half an hour, and take you there in 
ten mniutes, and there is plenty of room for ye all, and the 
cabin in case of rain. But as ye like ! A wilful man will 
have his way. If ye would rather work yourselves than 
have the work done for ye— and a shower in prospect ! But 
it s your own affair.” ^ 

The party, however, preferred the boats, and Katie put 
her father’s remonstrance aside with a wave of her hand. 

“ It is all these boys are ever good for ” she said, “ and 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


279 

why would you stop them ? Besides it is far nicer than your 
mechanical steam, and tea on hoard, and all the rest of it. 
Lord Erradeen, vou are to steer. If you don’t hnow the 
currents I can tell you. Here is your place beside me : and 
you can tell me what you have been doing all this time, for 
there were so many interruptions at lunch I got no good of 
you,” the young lady said. 

Thus Walter was swept along in Katie’s train. As he 
was quite unaware of any understanding between the girls 
he was of course ignorant that any special significance could 
attach to his arrival in this manner at the isle. And for his 
own part he was pleased by the thought of seeing Oona for 
the first time in an accidental way, without any responsi- 
bility, so to speak, of his own. It was a little cnilly for a 
water-party, but on the lochs people are prepared for that 
and it interferes with no one’s pleasure. The afternoon was 
full of sunshine, and every bit of broken bank, and every 
^ island and feathery crest of fir-trees was refiected and beau- 
tified in the still water, that broke with a ripple the fan- 
tastic doubling of every substance, but lent a glory to the 
color and brilliancy to every outline. The gay party swept 
along over refiected woods, themselves all brilliant in reflec- 
tion, and making the loch as gay as a Venetian canal. On 
the little landing-place at the isle the whole small population 
was collected to meet them. Mrs. Forrester in her white 
cap, shivering slightly, and glad to draw round her the fur 
cloak which Mysie was putting on her shoulders from behind, 
“ for the sun has not the strength it once had,” she explain- 
ed, “now that we are just getting round the corner of the 
year:” Hamish, always in his red shirt, kneeling on the 
little wooden landing which he had wheeled out to receive 
the party, in order to catch the prow of the first boat ; and 
Oona, a little apart, standing looking out, with a faint thrill 
of excitement about her, consequent on having just heard 
the news of Walter’s arrival, but no expectation to make 
this excitement tangible. They made a pretty show upon 
the little beach, reflected, too, in the clear depths below— 
the bit of ribbon on the mother’s cap, the knot of pale roses 
on Oona’s breast, culminating in Mysie’s stronger tints on 
one side, and the red of Hamish’s garment on the other. 

“What a pretty picture it would make,” Katie said. 
“ ‘ Hospitality,’ you ought to call it, or ‘Welcome to the isle.’ 
But there ought to be a gentleman to niake it perfect ; either 
an old gentleman to represent Oona’s father, or a young one 
for her husband. Don’t you think so. Lord Erradeen ? ^ 

It wns perhaps at this moment when he was listening 
with a somewhat distracted look, smiling against the grain, 
and standing up in the boat to steer, that Oona saw him first. 
It cannot be denied that the shock was great. In her sur- 
prise she had almost made a false step on the slippery 


28 o 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


shingle, and Mrs. Forrester grasped her dress with an 
“ Oona ! you’ll be in the water if you don’t take more care.” 
Oona recovered herself with a blush, which she would have 
given anything in the world to banish from her countenance. 
It was so then ! This man, who had, all unawares, produced 
so much effect upon her life and thoughts, was coming back 
within her little circle of existence in Katie Williamson’s 
train ! She smiled to herself a moment after, holding her 
head high, and with a sense of ridicule pervading the being 
which had been momentarily transfixed by that keen arrow 
of surprise and pain. She said to herself that the humor of 
it was more than any one could have believed, but that all 
was well. Oh, more than well !— for was not this the thing 
of all others that was good for her, that would put the mat- 
ter on the easiest footing ? All this flew through her mind 
like lightning while the boat came close, amid the friendly 
shouts and greetings of the crew, all of them “ neighbors’ 
sons.” Mr. Braithwaite, tho English observer, sat by ad-^ 
miring while these brotherly salutations were gone through. 
Perhaps he did not note in his diary that the young abori- 
gmes called each other by their Christian names, but he did 
make a remark to that effect in his mind. And then there 
ensued the little tumult of disembarking, in the midst of 
which Oona, holding out her hand, frankly greeted Lord 
Erradeen. “We heard you had come back,” she said, 
giving him a look of full and confident composure which 
puzzled Walter. She meant him, and not him only, to per- 
ceive the frankness of a reception in which there was not a 
shade of embarrassment, no recollection of the strange 
moment they had spent together, or of the encounter that 
had taken place upon the i^e. When one pair of eyes look 
into another with that momentary demonstration it is a 
proof of some meaning more than meets the eye. And 
Walter, whose own eyes were full too of a something, sul> 
dued and concealed so far as possible— a deprecating wistful 
look in which there was pardon sought (though he had con- 
sciously done her no wrong ; but in doing wrong at all liad 
he not offended Oona as Dante offended Beatrice, although 
she might never know of what sins he had been guilty ?) and 
homage offered — ^was still more perplexed by that open gaze 
in Avhich there was nothing of the softness of the look with 
which Oona had watched him going away, and which had so 
often recurred to his mind since. What did it mean ? It 
gave him welcome, but a welcome that felt? like the closing 
of a door. He was far too much occupied with investigating 
this problem to remark the corresponding look, the slight, 
almpst imperceptible smile that passed between Oona and 
Katie as they met. In the midst of all the cheerful din, the 
merry voices on the air, the boats run up upon the beach, 
the cheerful movement towards the house, such fine shades 


THE WIZARHS SON, 


281 


of feeling and dramatic purpose can make themselves appar- 
ent to those who are in the secret, but to no other. A mer- 
rier party never ascended the slope, and that is saying much. 
Mrs. Forrester led the way in the highest satisfaction. 

“ Mysie, ye will stand on no ceremony about following ” 
she said, but run on before and see that the tea is masked : 
but not too much^ to get that boiled taste. It is perhaps ex- 
travagant: but I like to have just what you may call the first 
flavor of the tea. And let the scones be just ready to bring 
ben, for Miss Williamson must not be kept too late on the 
water at this time of the year. To tell the truth,” she said, 
turning with her smiles to the member of parliament, a 
functionary for whom she had a great respect, counting him 
more important than a young lord, who after all was in the 
position of a “ neighbor’s son ” ; “to tell the truth I have 
just to be inhospitable at this season and push them away 
with my own hands : for it is always fresh upon the loch, 
and a score of young creatures with colds, all because I let 
them stay half an hour too late would be a dreadful reflec- 
tion. This will be your first visit to the loch ? Oh, I am 
sure we are delighted to see you, both Oona and me. We 
are always pleased to meet with strangers that have an 
appreciation. Some people would think it was a very lonely 
life upon the isle ; but I assure you if I could give you ii list 
of all the people that come here ! It would be rather a good 
thing to keep a list, now that I think of it, you would see 
some names that would be a pleasure to any one to- see. 
Yes, I think I must just set up a visiting-book, as if we were 
living in some grand place in London, say Grosvenor Square. 
What are you saying, Katie, my dear? Oh yes, I have 
shaken hands with Lord Erradeen. I am very glad to see 
him back, and I hope he will stay longer and let us see more 
of him than last year. This is one of our finest views. I 
always stop here to point it out to strangers,” she added, 
pausing, for indeed it was her favorite spot to take breath. 

And then the group gathered at the turning, and looked 
out upon Kinlodh Houran, lying in shadow, in the dimness 
of one of those quick-flying clouds which give so much 
charm to a Highland landscape. The old gray ruin lying 
upon the dulled surface, steel blue and cold, of the water, 
which round the isle was dancing in sunshine, gave a curi- 
ous effectiveness to the landscape. 

“ It is the ghost-castle.” “ It is the haunted house,” said 
one of the visitors, in a whisper, who would have spoken 
loud enough but for the presence of Walter, who stood and 
looked, with great gravity, upon his place of trial. When 
Katie’s voice became audible at his side, advising him in 
very distinct tones to restore the old place, Walter felt him- 
self shrink and grow red, as if some villany had been sug- 
gested to him. He made no reply. He had thought himself 


282 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


of something of the same description in his first acquain- 
tance with Kinloch Houran ; but how different his feelings 
were now ! ” 

The reader already knows what were Mrs. Forresters 
teas. The party filled the pleasant drawing-room in which 
a fire was burning brightly^ notwithstanding the sunshine 
without, and the scones arrived in bountiful quantity, one 
supi-fiy after another ; Mysie’s countenance beaming as “ a 
few more ” were demanded; while her mistress did nothing 
but fill out cups of tea and press her young guests to eat. 

“Another cup will not hurt you,” she said. “That is 
just nonsense about nerves. If it was green tea, indeed, and 
you were indulging in it at night to keep you off your sleep 
—but in a fine afternoon like this, and alter your row. Now 
just try one of these scones ; you have not tasted this kind. 
It is hot from the girdle ; ana we all think my cook has a 
gift. Mysie, tell Margaret that we will have a few more. 
And Oona, it is the cream scones that Katie likes : but you 
must tell Lord Erradeen to try this kind, just to please 
me.” 

Thus the kind lady ran on.' It gave her the profoundest 
pleasure to see her nouse filled, and to serve her young 
guests with these simple delicacies. “ Dear me, it is just 
nothing. I wish it was better worth taking,” she answered 
to Mr. Braithwaite’s compliments, who made the usual 
pretty speeches of the English tourist as to Scotch hospi- 
tality. Mrs. Forrester felt as if these compliments were a 
half-reproach to her for so simple an entertainment. “ You 
see,” she said, “ it is all we can do ; for, besides that there is 
no gentleman in the house, which is against dinner-giving, 
we are not well situated in the isle for evening visits. The 
nights are cold at this time of the year, and it is not always 
easy to strike our bit little landing in the dark ; so we have 
to content ourselves with a poor offering to our friends. 
And I am sure you are very kind to take it so politely. If 
my boys were at home, I would have it more in my power 
to show attention; but if you are going further north, I 
hope you will make your way to Eaglescairn and see my 
son, who will be delighted to show you the country about 
him,” Mrs. Forrester said. The English M.P, could not but 
think that it was his reputation which had travelled before 
him, and gained him so delightful a reception. 

As for the rest of the party, they were fully entertained 
by; Oona, who was more than usually lively and bright. She 
said very little to Lord Erradeen, who was by far the most 
silent of the assembly, but exerted herself for her other 
guests, with a little flush upon her which was very becom- 
ingj and an excitement completely concealed and kept under, 
which yet acted upon her like a sort of ethereal stimulant 
quickening all her powers. They were so gay that Mrs. 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


283 

Forrester’s anxiety about their return, which indeed she 
lorgot as soon as they were under her roof, was baffled, and 
it was not till the glow of the sunset was beginning to die 
out in the west that the visitors began to move. Then there 
was a hurry mg and trooping out, one group following an- 
other, to get to the boats. The landscape had changed since 
they came, and now the upper end of the loch was all cold 
and chill in the grayness of early twilight, though the sky 
behind in the southward was still glowing with color. 
Benlui lay in a soft mist, having put off his purple and geld, 
and drawn about him the ethereal violet tones of his evening 
mantle ; but on the slopes beneath, as they fell towards the 
margin of the water, all color had died out. Lord Erradeen 
was one of the last to leave the house, and he was at first 
but vaguely aware of the little movement and sudden pause 
of the party upon the first turn of the winding path. He 
did not even understand for a moment the eager whisper 
which came almost more distinctly than a shout through 
the clear still evening air. It was the voice of young Tom 
of Eller more. 

“ Look there ! the light— the light ! Who says they do 
not believe in it ? ” the young fellow said ; and then there 
was a flutter of exclamations and subdued cries of wonder 
and interest, not without dissentient voices. 

“I see some sort of glimmer,” said one. 

“ It is as clear as day,” cried another. 

“ It must be reflection,” a third said. 

■ Walter raised his eyes ; he had no sort of doubt to what 
they referred. His old house lay dark upon the edge of the 
dark gleaming loch, silent, deserted, not a sign of life about 
the ruined walls ; but upon the tower shone the phantasm 
of the light, now waning, now rising, as if some unfelt wind 
blew about the soft light of an unseen lamp. It brought 
him to himself in a moment, and woke him up from The 
maze of vague thoughts which had abstracted him even in 
the midst of the gay movement and bustle. He listened 
with strange spectatorship, half stern, half amused, to all 
the murmurs of the little crowd. 

“ If you call that light ! ” said the voice of Katie ; “ it is 
some pnosphoresence that nobody has examined into, I sup- 
pose. Who knows what decayed things are there? That 
sort of glimmer always comes out of decay. Oh, yes, I once 
went to chemistry lectures, and I know. Besides, it stands 
to reason. What could it be else ? ” 

“ You know very well, -Katie, what they say— that it is 
the summons of the warlock lord.” 

“ I would like to answer the summons,” cried Katie, with 
a laugh. “I would send for the health inspector, from 
Glasgow, and clear it all out, every old crevice, and all the 
perilous stuff. That would be the thing to do. As for the 


THE WIZARD'S EON, 


284 

warlock lord, papa shall invite him to dinner if you will find 
out where he is to be met with, Tom.” 

“ Like the commandant in Don Giovanni^"' somebody 
said ; and there was an echoing laugh, but of a feeble kind. 

Walter heard this conversation with a sort of forlorn 
amusement. He was not excited ; his blood was rather con- 
gealed than quickened in his veins. But he lingered behind, 
taking no notice of his late companions as they streamed, 
away to the boats. He seemed in a moment to have been 
parted miles— nay, worlds away from them. When he 
thought of the interview that was before him, and of the 
light-hearted strangers making comments upon the legend 
of the place with laugh and jest, it seemed to him that he 
and they could scarcely belong to the same race. He lingered, 
with no heart for the farewells and explanations that would 
be necessary if he left them formally : and turning round 
gazed steadfastly towards Kinloch Houran from behind the 
shade of the shrubbery. Here Oona found him, as she rushed 
back to warn him that the boats were pushing off. She be- 
gan breathlessly— 

“ Lord Erradeen, you are called ” then stopped, looked 

at him, and said no more. 

He did not answer her for a moment, but stood still, and 
listened to the sounds below, the impatient call, the plash 
of the oars in the water, the grating of the keel of the last 
boat as it was pushed off. Then he looked at Oona, with a 
smile. 

“lam called — ?” he said, “but not that way. Now I 
must go home.” 

Her heart beat so that she could scarcely speak. Was 
this spell to take possession of her again, against her will, 
without any wish of his, like some enchantment? She 
fought against it with all her might. 

If that is so,” she said, “ Hamish will put you across, 
when you please.” 

He took no notice of these indifferent words. 

“ This time,” he said, “ it is altogether different. I know 
what is going to happen, and I am not afraid. But it must 
come to an end.” 

What was it to her if it came to an end or not? She tried 
f epk the quick-rising sympathy, to offer no response. 

They will be late on the water, but I hope they will get 
home before dark,” she replied. 

Then he looked at her wistfully, with a look that melted 
her very heart. 

“ Don’t you know that it will never come to an end unless 
you stand by me ? ” he cried. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


28s 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

Mrs. Forrester was most willing to put Hamish’s ser- 
vices, or anything else she possessed, at Lord Erradeen’s 
service. “ It is just the most sensible thing you could do,” 
she said. “ They will be very late, and half of them will 
have colds. Oona, ygu will just let Hamish know. But 
Lord Erradeen, since you are here, will you not stay a little 
longer, and get your dinner before you go ? No? Well, I 
will not say another word if it is not convenient. Just tell 
Hamish, Oona, my dear.” 

Walter followed her so closely when she went upon that 
mission that she could not escape him. They stood together 
in the gray of the evening light, upon the beach, while 
Hamish prepared the boat, Oona’s mind in a tumult of ap- 

g rehension and resistance, with an insidious softness be- 
md, which she felt with despair was betraying her over 
again into the folly she had surmounted. He had not the 
same commotion in his mind; his thoughts were altogether 
bent on what was coming. She was his confidant, his sup- 

g ort in it, though he had not said a word to her. He took 
er into account in the matter as a man takes his wife. She 
was a part of it all, though it was not of her he was think- 
ing. He spoke after a moment in a tone full of this curious 
calm, whicn seemed to him at the moment incontestable. 

It will never come to an end unless you stand by* me,” 
he said. “ Everything can be done if you will stand by me.” 

Oona, in her strange agitation, felt as if she had surprised 
him thinking aloud ; as if he did not address her, but merely 
repeated to himself a fact which was beyond dispute. He 
said no more, neither did she make any reply. And once 
more, as if in repetition of the former scene, he turned round 
as he stepped into the heavy boat, and looked back upon her 
as Hamish began to jily the oars. She stood and watched 
him from the beach ; there was no wave of the hand, no 
word of farewell. They were both too much moved for ex- 
pression of any kind ; and everything was different though 
the same. Oh the former occasion he had been escaping, 
and was eager to get free, to get out of reach of an oppres- 
sion he could not bear ; but now was going to his trial, to 
meet the tyrant, with a certainty that escape was impossi- 
ble. And for Oona there had been the sensation of a loss 
unspeakable — a loss which she could neither confess nor ex- 
plain, which took the heart out of her life ; whereas now 
there was a re-awakening, a mysterious beginning which she 
could not account for or understand. She stood on the beach 
till the boat had disappeared, and even till the sound of the 


286 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


oars died out in the distance, in an agitation indescribable. 
The first despairing sense that the intiuence against which 
she had struggled was regaining possession of her, was for 
the moment lost in an overwhelming tide of sympathy and 
response to the claim he had made. He had no right to 
make that claim, and it was intolerable that she should have 
so little power over herself as to yield to it, and allow her- 
self to become thus the subject of another. Her pride, her 
reason, had been in arms against any such thraldom ; but 
for this moment Oona was again overcome. She had no 
power of resistance— her very being sSemed to go with him, 
to add itself to his, as he disappeared across the darkling 
loch. Stand by him ! The words went breathing about her 
in the air, and in her mind, and everything in her echoed 
and responded — Stand by him ! Yes, to the death. This 
excitement failed in a sudden chill and shiver, and sense of 
shame which covered her face with blushes which no one 
saw, as startled by the gathering dark, and the sound of 
Mysie’s step hastening down to the landing-place with a 
shawl for her, Oona turned again and ran swiftly up the 
winding way. 

The loch was like lead, with a ripple of mysterious 
changing lights in the darkness, as the boat shot round im- 
der the shadow of Kinloch Houran. All was as still as in a 
world of dreams, the sound of Hamish’s oars in their regular 
sweep alone breaking the intense stillness. Here and tb^re 
among the trees a light glimmered on the shore — a window 
of the Manse— the door of the little inn standing open and 
betraying the ruddy warmth within: but no sound near 
enough to interrupt the stillness. W alter felt as though he 
parted with a certain protection when he stepped upon the 
bit of mossed causeway which served as a landing pier to 
the old castle, and, bidding Hamish good-night, stood alone 
in that sor.tude and watched the boatman’s red shirt, which 
had foTcec^ its color even upon the twilight, grow black as it 
disappears jd. The sensation in Walter’s mind had little 
akin witlv that panic and horror which had once over- 
whelmed him. No doubt it was excitement that filled up 
his whole being, and made the pulse throb in his ears, but it 
was excit' jment subdued ; and all he was conscious of was a 
sort of sasldened expectation — a sense of a great event about 
to take p] ace which he could not elude or stave off — a strug- 
gle in wb ich he might be worsted. “ Let not him that put- 
teth on h is armor boast himself like him that putteth it off.” 
He did not know what might happen to him. But the 
tremors of his nervous system, or of his agitated soul, or of 
his phyc ileal frame— he could not tell which it was— were 
stilled. He was intensely serious and sad, but he was not 
afraid. 

Syi2>.J» igton, who had been in waiting, listening for his 


THE WlZARHS SON, 


287 

master’s return, opened the door and lighted him up the 
spiral stairs. The room was already lighted and cheerful, 
the curtains drawn, the fire blazing brightly. 

“ The days are creeping in,” he said, “ and there’s a nip in 
the air aneath thae hills— so I thought a fire would be 
acceptable.” In fact the room looked very comfortable and 
bright, not a place for mysteries. Walter sat down between 
the cheerful fire and the table with its lights. 

There is often at the very crisis of fate a relaxation of 
the strain upon the mind— a sudden sense as of peril over, 
and relief. Thus the dying will often have a glimmer in the 
socket, a sense of betterness and hope before the last 
moment. In the same w'ay a sensation of relief came on 
Walter at the height of his expectation. His mind was 
stilled. A feeling without any justification, yet grateful and 
consoling, came over him, as if the trial were over, or at least 
postponed — as if something had intervened for his deliver- 
ance. He sat and warmed himself in this genial glow, feeling 
his pulses calmed and his mind soothed— he could not tell 
how. How long or how short the interval of consolation 
was, if a few minutes only, or an hour, or half a lifetime, he 
could not tell. He was roused from it by the sound of steps 
in the corridor outside. It was a passage which ended in 
nothing— in the gloom of the ruinous portion of the house— 
and consequently it was not usual to hear any sound in it, 
the servants invariably approaching Lord Erradeen’s rooms 
by the stair. On this occasion, however, Walter, suddenly 
roused, heard some one coming from a distance with steps 
which echoed into the vacancy as of an empty place, but 
gradually drawing nearer, sounding, in ordinary measure, a 
man’s footstep, firm and strong, but not heavy, upon the cor- 
ridor outside. Then the door was opened with the usual 
click of the lock and heavy creak with which it hung upon 
its hinges. He rose up, scarcely knowing what he did. 

“ You examined everything last night to find a secret pas- 
sage,” said the new comer with a humorous look, “ which 
indeed might very well have existed in a house of this date. 
There was actually such a passage once existing, and con- 
nected with a secret room which I have found useful m its 
time. But that was in another part of the house, and the 
age of concealments and mysteries — of that kind — is past. 
AVon’t you sit down ? ” he added, pleasantly. “ You see I put 
myself at my ease at once.” 

Walter’s heart had given such a bound that the sensation 
made him giddy and faint. He stood gazing at the stranger, 
only half comprehending what was happening. All that 
happened was natural and simple in the extreme. The 
visitor walked round the table to the other side of the fire, 
and moving the large chair which stood there into a position 
corresponding to Walter’s seated himself in the most 


288 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


leisurely and easy way. “ Sit' down,” he repeated after a 
moment, more peremptorily, and with almost a tone of im- 
patience. “We have much to talk over. Let us do it com- 
fortably, at least.” 

“I can have nothing to talk over,” said Walter, feeling 
that he spoke with dilticulty, yet getting calm by dint of 
speaking, “ with an undesired and unknown visitor.” 

The other smiled. “ If you will think of it you will find 
that I am far from miknown,” he said. “ No one can have a 
larger body of evidence in favor of his reality. What did 
that poor little woman in Edinburgh say to you ? ” ^ 

“I wonder,” cried Walter, unconscious of the inconsis- 
tency, “ that you can permit yourself to mention her name.” 

“ Poor little thing, he replied, “ I am sincerely sorry for 
her. Had I foreseen what was going to happen I should 
have guarded against it. You may tell her so. Everything 
that IS subject to human conditions is inconsistent and 
irregular. But, on the whole, taking life altogether, there is 
not so much to be regretted. Probably she is happier there 
than had she embarked, as she was about to do, in a struggle 
with me. Those who contend with me have not an easy 
career before them.” 

“Yet one day it will have to be done,” Walter said. 

“ Yes. You consent then that I am not unknown, how- 
ever undesired,” the stranger said, with a smile. He was so 
entirely at his ease, at his leisure, as if he had hours before 
him, that Walter, gazing in an impatience beyond words, 
felt the hopelessness of any effort to hurry through the inter- 
view, and dropped into his seat with a sigh of reluctance and 
despair. 

“Who are you?” he cried; “and why, in the name of 
God, do you thus torment and afflict a whole race ? ” 

“The statement is scarcely correct. I was a Highland 
youth of no pretentions once, and you are supposed to be 
Lord Erradeen, a Scotch earl and an English peer. That is 
what my tormenting and afflicting have come to, with many 
solid acres and precious things besides. Very few families 
of our antiquity have even survived these centuries. Not 
one has grovui and increased to the- point at which we stand. 
I see a great addition within our reach now.” 

“And what good has it all done?” Walter said. “ They 
say that my predecessor was a miserable man, and I know 
that I— since this elevation, as you think it — ^have been ” 

“ Good for nothing. I allow it fully. What were you be- 
fore ? Equally good for nothing ; consuming your mother’s 
means, opposing her wishes, faithful to no one. My friend, 
a man who sets himself against me must be something 
different from that.” 

To this Walter made no renly. He could not be called 
penitent for the folly of his life; but he was aware of it. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


A' 


289 


And he did not attempt to defend himself. He was entirely 
silenced for the moment: and the other resumed. 

I have always felt it to he probable that some one ca- 
pable of resistance might arise in time. In the meantime all 
that has happened has been gain, and my work has been 
fully successful. It would rather please me to meet one in 
the course of the ages who was fit to be my conqueror, being 
my son. It is a contingency which I have always taken into 
consideration. But it is not likely to be you,” he said, with 
a slight laugh. “ I shaCll know my victor when he comes.” 

“Why should it not be I? If it be enough to hate this ty- 
rannical mfiuence, this cruel despotisii. ” 

“ As you have hated every influence and every rule all 
your life,” said the other with a smile. “ Tliat is not the sort • 
of man that does anything. Do you think it is agreeable to 
me to be the progenitor of a race of nobcciies? J compensate 
myself by making them great against their v. ill— tl^^ pup- 
pets ! I allowiyou to v/ear my honors out of c( nsideration to 
the prejudices of society : but they are all mine.” 

“It was not you, however, who got them,” said Walter. 

“ Can a grandfather inherit what was given to his descend- 
ants ? ” 

“ Come,” said the stranger, “ you are showing a little spir- 
it — 1 like that better. Let us talk now of the immediate 
business in hand. You have something in your power which 
I did not foresee when I talked to you last. Then there were 
few (Opportunities of doing anything— nothing in your range 
tlial I had observed, but to clear ofi; incumbrances, which, by 
the way, you refused to do. Now a trifling exertion on your 
part ” 

“You mean the sacrifice of my life.” 

The stranger laughed— this time wdth a sense of the ludi- 
crous which made his laugh ring through the room with the 
fullest enjoyment. “ The sacrifice of a life, w liich has been 

made happy by and by and by — -. How many 

Tfames would you like me to produce? You have perhaps a 
less opinion of women than I have. Which of them, if they 
knew all about it, as I do, would pick up that life and unite 
their own to it ? But happily they don’t know. She thinkjt 
nerhaps— that girl on the isle— that I meant her harm by my 
warning. I meant her no harm— wdiy should I harm her? i 
iiarm no one w^ho does not step into my Avay.” 

“Man!” cried Walter— “if you are a man— would you 
hurt her for succoring me? AYould you treat her as you 
treatecl-^^ — ” . ■ . _ ^ a 

“ That was an accident, he said quickly. I have told 
you already I would have guarded against it had I divined 

But your limited life is the very empire of accident. 

Even with all our foresight we cannot always make sure — - * 

• “ Yet there are occasions in which it is not accident. Is 


290 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


it possible that there might be clanger to ” W alter got 

up and began to pace about the room. He had completely 
surmounted every other sort of superstitious terror ; but if 
it were possible that this dark spirit with poAver more than a 
man’s could injure Oona ! His self-command forsook him at 
the thought. 

“ Those who come across my path must take the conse- 
cpiences,” said the stranger, calmly.' “ It is their own fault if 
they put themselves in the Avay of danger. The woman whom 
you must marry ” 

The words suddenly seemed to close on the air, leaving 
no sort of echo or thrill in it; and Walter, looking round, 
saw Symington come in with the scared look he remembered 
to have seen in the old man’s countenance before, though 
Avithout any sign in him of seeing the stranger. He asked in 
a hesitating mariner, “Did ye ring, my lord? You’ll be 
wanting your dinner. It is just ready to come up.” 

Walter Avas about to send the old servant hastily aAvay ; 
but a slight sign from his visitor restrained him. He said 
nothing, but Avatched, Avith feelings indescribable, the pro- 
ceedings of the old man, who began to lay the table, moving 
to and fro, smoothing the damask cloth, folding the napkin, 
arranging the silver. Symington did everything as usual : 
but there Avas a tremor in him, unlike his ordinary compo- 
sure. Sometimes he threAV an alarmed and tremulous look 
round the room, as if something terrifying might lurk j^i any 
corner ; but Avhile doing so brushed past the very person of 
that strange visitor in the chair Avithout a sign that he ImeAv 
any one to be there. This mixture of suppressed panic and 
inconceivable unconsciousness^ gave Walter a suffocating 
sensation Avhich he could not master. He cried out suddenly, 
in a loud and sharp tone which Avas beyond his OAvn control, 
“ Symington! Is it possible you don’t see ” 

Symington let the forks and spoons he was holding drop 
out of his hands. He cried out, quavering, “Lord have a 
care of us ! ” Then he stooped trembling to gather up the 
things he had dropped, which was a great trouble, so nervous 
and tremulous was he. He collected them all at the very 
4^'oot of the man who sat smiling in the great chair. 

“ You gave me a terrible fright, my lord,” the old man 
said, raising himself Avith a broken laugh : “ that Avas Avhat 
you meant, no doubt. All this Avater about and damp makes 
a man nervish. See ! what should I see ? I am no one of 
those,” Symington added, Avith a great attempt at precision 
and a AA^atery smile, “that see visions and that dream 
dreams.” 

“ Why should you disturb the man’s mind for nothing,” 
said the visitor in that penetrating voice Avhich Walter felt 
to go through him, penetrating every sense. He had grown 
reckless in the strange horror of the circumstances. • ’ 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


291 

, “Don’t you hear that? ” he cried sharply, catching Sym- 
ington by the arm. 

The old man gave a cry, his eyes flickered and moved as 
if they would have leapt from their sockets. He shook so 
that Walter’s grasp alone seemed to keep him from falling. 
But he remained quite unconscious of any special object of 
alarm. 

“ Me ! I hear naething,” he cried. “ There is naething to 
hear. You have listened to all those old stories till ye are 
just out of yourself. But no me,” Symington said with a 
quavering voice, but a forced smile. “No me I I am not su- 
perstitious. Y^ou will no succeed, my lord, in making a fool 
of me. Let me go. The trout is done by this time, and I 
must bring up my dinner,” he cried with feverish impatience,, 
shaking himself free. 

Walter turned round half-dazed to say he knew not what 
to the occupant of that chair. But when he looked towards 
it there was no one there ; nor in the room, nor anywhere 
near was the slightest trace of his visitor to be found. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

It may be supposed that the dinner which was served to 
Lord Erradeen after this episode was done but little justice 
to. The trout was* delicious, the bird cooked to perfection ; 
but the young man, seated in sight of the apparently vacant 
chair, where so lately his visitor had been seated, could 
scarcely swallow a morsel. Was he there still, though no one 
could see him ? or had^he departed only to return again when 
Symington and the meal had been cleared away, and the eve- 
ning was free ? Tiiere was a sickening sensation at Walter’s 
heart as he asked himself these questions^ and indeed, 
throughout this portion of his life, his experience was that 
the actual presence of this extraordinary person was very 
much less exciting and confusing than the effect produced 
during his apparent absence, when the idea that he might 
still be there unseen, or might appear at any moment, seemed 
to disturb the mental balance in a far more painful way. In 
the present case the effect was overpowering. Walter had 
been talking to him almost with freedom : it was impossible, 
indeed, thus to converse— even though the conversation was 
something of a struggle, with a man possessed of all the or- 
dinary faculties, and in appearance, though more dignified 
and stately than most, yet in no way unlike other men— 
without a gradual cessation of those mysterious tremors with 
which the soul is convulsed in presence of anything that a}> 
pears supernatural. The personage who inhabited or (for it 
was impossible to think of him as inhabiting a rum) period- 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


292 

ically visited Kinloch Houran had nothing in him save 
his stateliness of aspect which need have separated him 
from ordinary men. He would have attracted attention any- 
where, but, except as a person of unusual distinction, would 
have startled no one; and even when the young man so 
cruelly subject to his influence- talked with him, it was im- 
possible to keep up the superstitious terror which nature 
feels for the inexplainable. But as soon as he withdrew, all 
this instinctive feeling returned. Walter’s nerves and imag- 
ination sprang up into full play again, and got command 
of his reason. By moments it seemed to him that he caught 
a glimpse still of an outline in the chair, of eyes looking at 
him, of the smile and the voice whcih expresed so full a 
knowledge of all his own past history and everything that 
was in him. This consciousness gave to his eyes the same 
scared yet searching lo5k which he had seenin those^of Sym- 
ington, took his breathdrom him^ made his head whirl, and 
his heart fail. Symington waiting behind his chair, but 
eagerly on the watch for any sign, saw that his young lord 
was ghastly pale, and perceived the half stealthy look which 
he cast around him, and especially the entire failure of his 
appetite. This is a thing which no Scotch domestic can 
bear. 

“ You are no eating, my lord,!’ he said in a tone of gentle 
reproach, as he withdrew the plate with the untasted trout. 
(“Idiat many a poor gentleman would have been glad of ! ” 
he said to himself.) 

“ ISTo, I am not particularly hungry,” Yf alter said, with a 
pretence of carelessness. 

“ I can recommend the bird,” said.Symington, “ if it’s no 
just a cheeper, for the season is advanced, it’s been young 
and strong on the wing ; and gDod game is rich, fortifying 
both to the body and spirit. Those that have delicate sto- 
machs, it is just salvation to them— and for those that are, as 
ye may say, in the condition of invalids in the mind ” 

Symington had entirely recovered from liis own nervous- 
ness. He moved about the room with a free step, mid felt 
himself fully restored to the position of counsellor and ad 
viser, with so much additional freedom as his young master 
vvas less in a position to restrain him, and permitted him to 
si eik almost without interruption. Indeed Walter as he 
inelf ectually tried to eat was half insensible to the monologue 
going on over his head. 

“Ye must not neglect the body,” Symington said, “es- 
pecially in a place like this v/iiere even the maist reasonable 
man may be whiles put to it to keep his right senses. . If 
ye’ll observe, my lord, them that see what ye may call visions 
are, mostly half starvit creatures fasting or ill-nourished. 
Superstition, in my opinion has a great deal to do with want 
of meat. But your lordship is paying no attention. Just 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


293 

two three mouthfuls, my lord ! just as a duty to yourself 
and all your friends, and to please a faithful auld servant,” 
Symington said, with more and more insinuating tones. 
There was something almost pathetic in the insistance with 
which he pressed “ a breast of partridge that would tempt a 
saint” upon his young master. The humor of it struck 
Walter dully through the confusion of his senses. It was all 
like a dream to him made up of the laughable and the miser- 
able ; until Symington at last consented to see that his im- 
portunities were miavailing, and after a tedious interval of 
clearing away, took himself and all his paraphernalia out of 
the room, and left Walter alone. It seemed to Lord Erradeen 
that he had not been alone for a long time, nor had any lei- 
sure in which to collect his faculties ; and for the first few 
minutes after the door had closed upon his too officious ser- 
vant a sense of relief was in his mind. He drew a long breath 
of ease and consolation, and throwing himself back in his 
chair gave himself up to momentary peace. 

This mood did not last long. He had not been alone five 
minutes before there sprang up within him ^ omething which 
could be called nothing less than a personal struggle with— 
he could not tell what. There is a quickening of excitement 
in a mental encounter, in the course of a momentous discus- 
sion, wl^ich almost reaches the height of that passion which 
is roused by bodily conflict, when the subject is important 
enough or the antagonists in deadly earnest. But to de- 
scribe how this is intensified when the discussion takes place 
not between two, but in the spiritual consciousness of one, 
is almost too much for words to accomplish. Lord Erradeen 
in the complete solitude of this room, closed and curtained 
and shut out from all access to the world, suddenly felt him- 
self in the height of such a controversy. He saw no one, nor 
did it occur to him again tg look for any one. There was no 
need. Had his former visitor appeared, as before, seated 
opposite to him in the chair which stood so suggestively 
between the fire and the table, his pulses would have calmed, 
and his mind become composed at once. But there was no- 
body to address him in human speech, to oppose to him the 
ch'^nges of a human countenance. The question was dis- 
cussed thin himself with such rapidity of argument and 
reply, such clash of intellectual weapons, as never occurs to • 
the external hearing. They passed thus under review the 
entire history of the struggle which had been going on from 
the time of Tord Erradeen’s first arrival at the home of his 
race. It ran after* this fashion, though with the quickness 
of thought far swifter than words. 

‘‘You thought you had conquered me. You thought you 
had escaped me.” 

*“I did ; you had no power in the glen, or on the isle.” 


294 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


“Fool! I have power anywhere, wherever you have 
been.’ 

“ To betray me into wickedness ? ” 

“ To let you go your own way. Did I tempt you to evil 
beiore ever you heard of me ? ” 

“ Can I tell ? perhaps to prepare me for bondage.” 

“ At school, at home, abroad, in all relations ? Self-lover ! 
My object at least is better than yours.” 

“ I am no self-lover ; rather self-hater, self-despiser.” 

“ It is the same thing. Self before all. I offer you some- 
thing better, the good of your race.” 

“ I have no race. 1 refuse 1 ” 

“You shall not refuse. You are mine, you must obey 
me.” 

“ Never ! I am no slave. I am my own master.” 

“ The slave of every petty vice : the master of no impulse. 
Yield ! I can crush you if I please.” 

“ Never ! I am — Oona’s then, who will stand by me.” 

“ Oona’s ! a girl 1 who when she knows what you are will 
turn and loathe you.” 

“ Fiend ! You fled when she gave me her hand.” 

“ Will she touch your hand when she knows what it has 
clasped before ? ” 

Then Walter felt his heart go out in a great cry. ^ If any 
one had seen him thus, he would have borne the aspect of a 
madman. His forehead was knotted as with great cords, 
his eyes, drawn and puckered together in their sockets, shone 
with a gleam of almost delirious hatred and passion. He 
held back, his figure all drawn into angles, and a horrible 
tension of resistance as if some one with the force of a giant 
was seizing him. He thought that he shrieked out with all 
the force of mortal agony. “No! If Oona turns and all 
angels— I am God’s then at the last ! ” 

Then there seemed to him to‘ come a pause ot perfect 
stillness in the heart of the battle ; but not the cessation of 
conflict. Far worse than the active struggle it was with a 
low laugh that his antagonist seemed to reply. 

“ God’s ! whom you neither love nor obey, nor have ever 
sought before.” 

The room in which Lord Erradeen sat was quite still all 
through the evening, more silent than the night air that 
ruffled the water and sighed in the trees permitted outside. 
The servants did not hear a sound. Peace itself could not 
have inhabited a more noiseless and restful place. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


295 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

In the early morning there is an hour more like paradise 
than anything else vouchsafed to our mortal senses as a sym- 
bol of the better world to come. The evening is infinitely 
sweet, but it implies labor and rest and consolation, which 
are ideas not entirely dissevered from pain • but in the first 
glory of the morning there is an unearthly sweetness, a 
lustre as of the pristine world, unsoiled, untried, unalloyed, 
a heavenly life and calm. The sunshine comes upon us with 
a surprise, with something of that exultant novelty which it 
must have had to Adam ; the drops of dew shine like little 
separate worlds ; the birds, most innocent of all the inhabi- 
tants of earthj have the soft-breathing universe to them- 
selves : all their sweet domestic intercourses, the prattle of 
the little families, their trills of commentary touching every- 
thing that is going on m earth and heaven get accomplished 
as the level line of sunshine penetrates from one glade to 
another, higher and higher, touching as it passes every 
bough into life. Awakening and vitality is in the very at- 
mosphere which brings a new hope, a new day, a new world 
of possibility and life. Xew heavens and a new earth thus 
present themselves to mortal cognizance, for the most part 
quite unconscious of them, every day. 

If only we brought nothing with us from the old world 
that ended in the night ! But, alas, we bring everything — 
ourselves, that “ heritage of woe,” our thoughts, our desires, 
baffled or eager, for other objects than those which are in 
harmony with that new life and blessedness. When the sun 
rose visibly into the blue, skimming^ the surface of Loch 
Houran, and waking all the woods, there stood one spectator 
upon the old battlements of the ruined castle who was alto- 
gether out of harmony with the scene. Walter had not slept 
all night. He had not even gone through the form of going 
to bed. He had come out as soon as there was a glimmer of 
daylight, which, in October, is long of coming, to get what 
refreshment was possible from the breath of the morning 
air, and thivs had assisted at the re-awakening of earth, and 
all the development of the new-born day. From where he 
stood there lay before him a paradise of sky and water, with 
everything repeated, embellished, made into an ideal of two- 
fold sweetness, brightness, and purity, in the broad mirror 
of the lake. The autumn woods, the tracts of green field, or 
late yellow of the unreaped corn, all showed like another 
f air^dand underneath, a country still purer, more dazzling and 
brilliant, more still and fresh, than the morning land above. 
“ The light that never was on sea or shore ” shone in those 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


296 

glorified and softly rippling woods, trending away into the 
infinite to the point beyond which mortal vision cannot go. 

hilt haunts and refuges of happy life might be there ! 
what dreams of poetry beyond the human-! That lovely in- 
version of all things, that more than mortal freshness and 
sweetness and liquid glow of light, confused the mind with 
a kind of involuntary bliss, a vision of a place of escapOj the 
never attained country to which the soul, had it wings, 
might flee away and be at rest. 

But that soul had no wings which looked out from Wal- 
ter’s haggard countenance, as he leant on the half-i uined 
wall. He gazed at the scene before him like one who had no 
lot or part m it. Its peace and brightness brought but into 
greater relief the restlessness of his own soul, t ^e gloom and 
blackness in his heart. He had been struggling all night in 
a fierce, interal controversy which, to his own consciousness, 
was with another intelligence more powerful than his own, 
and yet might have been with himself, with the better part 
that kept up within him a protest for bettor things, with 
such representatives of conscience and the higher aSections 
as still existed within him. Hcfwever it was, he was ex- 
hausted with the struggle, his strength was worn out. The 
lull of pain which does not mean any cure, or even any be- 
ginning of healing, but is merely a sign that the power of 
the sufferer to endure has come to its limit, gave him a 
kind of, rest. But the rest itself was restless and incapable 
of composure. He moved about like an uneasy spirit along 
the broken lines of the old battlements, pausing here and 
there to phonge his eyes into the landscape, to take in the 
morning air with a long inspiration. And so unlike was the 
mood of his mind to his usual character and habits, that as 
lip moved, Walter gave vent to a low moaning, such as gives 
a kind of fictitious relief to the old and suffering— an invol- 
untary utterance which it was terrible to hear coming with 
his breathing from a young man’s lips, and. in the midst of 
su( 5 h a scene. Was he talking to himself? Was he only 
moaning as a dumb creature moans? By and by behalf 
filing himself, in his weariness, into one 01 the ruinous em- 
brasures, and remaiped there, leaning his back against one 
side of it. And then he said to himself^ repeating the words 
over and over again— ‘U^either God’s' nor Oona’s. Neither 
Oona’s nor God’s.” . . ' 

Lord Erradeen had arrived at that lowest depth of self- 
estimation, Avhich means despair. His own life had been 
forced upon him^ represented before his eyes he could not 
tell how. He liad seen itsupotives disentangled, its course 
traced, all its wastes laid bare, with a distinctness against 
which he could offer no appeal. He could deny nothing ; it 
was true ; this was what he had done, with a repetition of 
folly, of selfishness, of baseness, for which he could offer no 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


297 

sort of excuse, which confounded and abased him. He had 
known it all, it is true, before ; time after time he had pulled 
himself up and looked at the last scrap of his life, and pro- 
nounced it indefensible ; then had pushed it from him and 
gone on .again, escaping With all the haste he could from 
contemplation of the phenomena Avhich were inexplicable 
and which he did not desire to attempt to explain even to 
himself. He had said truly to Miss Milnathort that to 
know you are wrong is not always equivalent to being on 
the way to mend it. He had always known he was wrong 
he had never been deficient in moral disapproval of others 
like himself, or even of himself, when in one of the pauses of 
his career he was brought face to face with that individual. 
But he had been able tb put a sort of accidental gloss upon 
his own worst actions. He had not intended them ; there 
had been no motive whatever in what he did ; he had done 
so and so by chance — by indolence, becadse it happened to 
be put before him to do it ; but he had meant nothing by it. 
Out of this subterfuge he had been driven during the men- 
tal conflict of the night. And there was this peculiarity in 
his state, that he was not thus enlightened and convinced 
by the exertions of any reformatory influence, by any prophet 
bidding him repent. Conviction came from entirely the 
other side, and with a motive altogether different. “ Who 
are you,” iiis antagonist said, or seemed to say, “to take 
refuge with a pure woman, you who have never been pure ? 
Who are you to lay claim to* be God’s, after ignoring God’s 
existence altogether : or to be your own master, who have 
never ruled or guided yourself, but have been the slave of 
every folly, a feather blown on the wind, a straw carried 
away by the stream?” 

All these accusations had been made as plain to him as 
the daylight. \ i e had not been allowed to escape ; the course 
of his life had been traced so clearly, that he could not pro- 
test, or object, or contradict ; he was convinced — the most 
terrible position in which a man can be. Whether a man, 
thoroughly persuaded of his own moral wretchedness and 
debasement ever does escape despair, is a question full of 
difficulty. The prodigal’s sense that in his father’s house 
every servant has enough and to snare while he perishes 
of hunger is a different matter. “ Father, I have sinned, I 
am no more worthy to be called thy son ; make me as one of 
thy hired servants.” There are still possibilities to a soul in 
such a position. But one who is driven from stronghold to 
stronghold, until at length he is forced to allow that there 
is no inducement which has not been tried and failed with 
him, that he has no claim to the succor of God or man, or 
woman, that he has turned his back upon all, neglected all, 
wronged every power in heaven and earth that could help, 
what is he to do ? He may be forgiven ; but forgiveness in 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


298 

the entire abasement of that discovery is not what he wants. 
He wants a renovatioi>for which there seems no means left; 
he wants, in the old language— that language which we are 
said to have outgrown— to be born again : and that is impos- 
sible-impossible ! What is there in heaven or earth that 
wall prevent him from doing all over again what he has 
done before, the moment his circumstances permit it ? So 
long' as he is what he is— nothing : and how snail he be made 
other than what he is ? 

“Ye must be born again.” Ah, what preacher can know 
that as he does? But how— but how? Neither God’s nor 
Oona’s— and who^ then, was to help him ? He had caught at 
the woman in his despair ; he had not even so much as 
thought of God till the last moment, and then had flown like 
a coward to a fetish, meaning nothing but to escape. Why 
should God bend down from those spotless heavens to 
acknowledge the wretched runaway’s clutch at his divine 

g arments in the extremity of mortal terror? Would Oona 
ave given him that hand, of hers, had she known that his 
was stained? And would God attend to that coward’s ap- 
peal made only when everything else faded ? 

The young man sat in the corner of the embrasure press- 
ing himself against the rough stone- work for support. 
Despair had possession of his soul. What had he to do with 
the best and highest things, with freedom and love ? After 
all why should lie be his own master, why claim the right to 
judge lor himself ? If he had this freedom fully, what would 
he do with it ? Throw it away next day in exchange for 
nothing, some pleasure that palled in thetasting. Pleasure ! 
There was no pleasure, but only make-beliefs and deceptions. 
The old fellow was right, he began to say to himself, with a 
certain bitter humor. Had he exercised no coercion over 
the race, had the Methvens been left to their own devices 
how much of them would have remained now ? Instead of a 
peerage and great estates they would have died out in a 
ditch or in a sponging-house generations ago. Their lands 
w'ould have gone bit by bit ; their name v ould have disap- 
peared— all as he said. And supposing now that Walter was 
left entirely to do as he pleased what reason had he to be- 
lieve that he would not squandor everything he could squan- 
der, and bring down the prosperity of the race into the dust ? 
That is what he would have done if left to himself. He 
would have resisted all claims of prudence or duty. He 
would have followed, he knew it, the caprice of the moment, 
just as he had done now. If no former Methvens had ruined 
the family it was in himself to do it. All these thoughts 
were in favor of the submission which seemed to him now 
amiost the only thing before him. He thought of Miss 
Milnathort and her anxious addresses, and laughed to him- 
self bitterly at her childish hope. Two that should be one 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


299 

and that should be set on everything that was good. What 
a simpleton she was. He set on everything that was good. 
He was capable of anything that was good. And Oona — 
could there be a greater folly than to think that Oona, when 
she knew, would pick him up out of the ruin, and give him a 
new starting ground? He laughed at the thought aloud. 
Oona ! W as not her very name the token of purity, the 
very sign of maidenhood and innocence. And to believe 
that she would mingle herself in his being which w^as un- 
clean and false from its very beginning ! He laughed at his 
own folly to think so. In ignorance she had been more 
kind than ever woman was. She had asked no questions. 
She had given him her hand, she had stood by him. In ig- 
norance: du( when she knew! He said to himself that he 
was not cad enough to let her go on in this ignorance. He 
would have to tell her what he had been, what he 
would be again if left to circumstances and his own 
fancy. He would not deceive her ; he w^as not cad enough 
for that. And when he had told her, and had given up for 
ever all hope of really making a stand against tne tyrant of 
his race, or carrying out his theories of happiness, what 
would remain? What would remain? Subjection — mis- 
ery — 

“ Xo,” said a voice close by him, “ something else— some- 
thing very good in its way, and with which the greater 
majority of mankind are quite content, and may be very 
happy. The second best.” 

Walter had started at the sound of this voice. He left 
his seat with nervous haste ; and yet he had no longer any 
sense of panic. He had a certain doleful curiosity to see the 
man whom he had only seen in twilight rooms or by artifi- 
cial light, in the open air and by the sunshme. Perhaps this 
strange personage divmed his thoughts, for he came forward 
with a slight smile. There was nothing in his appearance 
to alarm the most timid. He was, as Miss Milnathort had 
called him, a grand gentleman. He had the air of one ac- 
customed to command, with that ease of bearing which only 
comes to those largely experienced in the world. The path 
along the ruinous battlements ^ was one that craved very 
Avary Avalking, but he traversed it with the boldest step with- 
out a moment’s hesitation or doubt. He made a little salu- 
tation with his hand as he approached. “ You were laugh- 
ing,” he said. “You are taking, I hope, a less highfloAvn 
vieAv of the circumstances altogether. The absolute does 
not exist in this world. W e must all be content jvith ad- 
A^antages Avhich are comparative. I always regret, he con- 
tinued, “ resorting to heroic measures. To have to do with 
some one who Avill hear and see reason, is a great relief. I 
follow the course of your thoughts Avith interest. They are 
all perfectly just ; and the conclusion is one Avhich most wise 


300 


THE WIZARD\^ SON. 


men have arrived at. Men in general arc fools. As a rule 
you are incapable of guiding yourselves ; but only the wise 
among you know it.’’ 

I have no pretension to be wise.” 

“ You are modest— all at once. So long as you are reason- 
able that will do. Adapt your life now to a new plan. The 
ideal is beyond your reach. By no fault of circumstances, 
but by your own, you have forfeited a great deal that is very 
captivating to the mind of youth, but very empty if you had 
it- all to-morrow. You must now rearrange your concep-^ 
tions and find yourself very well off with the second best.” 

There was something m his very tone which sent the 
blood coursing through Walter’s veins, and seemed to swell 
to bursting the great currents of life. He cried out — 

“ You have driven me to despair ! You have cut off from 
me every hope I And now you exliort me to find myself very 
well off*, to adapt my life to a new plan. Is that all you 
know ? ” 

His companion smiled. “ You would like me better to 
repeat to you again that you have no ground to stand upon, 
and are as unworthy as one can be at your age. All that is 
very true. But one aspect of the matter is not all. In the 
meantime you will have to live and get on somehow. Suicide 
of course is always open to you, but you are not the sort of 
man for that ; besides, it is begging the question, and solves 
no problem, i^o, you must live— on the second level. Your 
ideal has always been impossible, for you have never had 
heart or will to keep up to it. Why you should have had 
this fit of fantastic wilfulness now, and really believed that 
by means of vague aspirations you were to get the better o:^ 
me and all your antecedents, I cannot tell. You must now 
find out practically how you are to live.” 

Walter had reached the lowest depths of despair a little 
while ago. 'He had consented that it was all true, that there 
was no further escape for him ; but now again a passionate 
contradiction surged up within him. “I will not,” he said, 
vehemently, “ I will not— take your way,” 

“ I think you will — for why ? — there is no other half so 
good. You will be very comfortable, and you will have 
clone a great thing for your house. By and by you will set- 
tle into a conviction that what you have done is the best 
thing you could have done. It is one of the privileges of 
mankind. And I promise you that I will not molest you. 
Your coming here will be little more than a formula. You 
will agree with me : why then should there be any contro- 
versy between us ? Maturity and wealth and w^ell being will 
bring you to think with me that a settled advantage like that 
of one’s race is far beyond all evanescent good of the fancy. 
You will become respectable and happy — yes, quite happy 
enough— as happy as men ha\ e any right to be.”. 


THE V/IZARD'S SON. 


301 


There vras a half tone of mockery as if the speaker scorned 
the picture he drew ; and at every word the resistance which 
had been almost stilled in Walter’s mind rose up more 
warmly. “Are you happy yourself,” he said, suddenly, “that 
you recommend this to me ? ” 

The stranger paused a little. “ The word is a trivial one. 

I have many gratifications,” he said. 

“ I don’t know what your gratifications can be. Is it 
worth your while to live through the ages as you say — you, 
so powerful as you are, with so many great faculties — in a 
miserable old ruin, to exercise this terrorism upon unoffend- 
ing men ? ” 

Then Walter’s companion laughed aloud. “To live for 
ages in a miserable old ruin ! ” he said. “ That does not 
seem a very attractive lot indeed. But set your mind at 
rest, my kind descendant ; I live in a miserable ruin no more 
than you do. ‘ My affairs are everywhere. I have the weak- 
ness of a man for my own — perhaps in other regions as well 
—but that is nothing to you.” 

“It is everything to me. Give me some explanation of 
jmu. If, as you say, you have lived for centuries impossibly, 
now have you done it ? Have you ever come to a blank wall 
like me — have you ever been abandoned by every hope ? or,” 
cried the young man, “ am I your superior in this horrible 
experience? No man could stand as I do— given up to des- 
pair : and yet go on living like you.” 

“ It depends upon your point of view. When you have 
taken my advice (as you wall do presently) and have come 
down from your pinnacle and accepted what is the ordinary 
let of mankind, you will find no longer any difficulty in liv- 
ing— as long as is possible ; you will not wish to shorten- 
your life by a day.” 

“ Aiid what is the ordinary lot of mankind? ” cried Wal- 
ter^ feeling himself once more beaten down, humiliated, 
irritated by an ascendency which he could not resist. 

“ I have told you— the second best. In your case a vdfo 
with a great deal of wealth, and many other qualities, who 
will jar upon your imagination (an imagination which has 
hitherto entertained itself so nobly !) and exasperate your 
temper perhaps, and leave your being what you call incom- 
plete : but who will give you a great acquisition of impor- 
tance and set you at peace with me. Tnat alone will tell 
for much in your comfort ; and gradually your mind will be 
brought into conformity. You \yill consider subjects in 
general as I do, from a point of view which will not be indi- 
vidual. You will not balance the interests of the few miser- 
able people who choose to think their comfort impaired, but 
will act largely for the continued benefit of your heirs and you 
pro-^»erty. Yon will avail yourself of my perceptions, which 
are inofe extended than your own, and gradually become the 


THE WIZARHS SON, 


302 

greatest landowner, the greatest personage of your district ; 
able to acquire the nighest honors if you please, to wield the 
greatest influence. Come, you have found the_ other posi- 
tion untenable according to your own confession. Accept 
the practicable. I do not hurry you. Examine for your- 
self into the issues of your ideal, now that we have become 
friends and understand each other so thoroughly.” 

“ I am no friend of yours. I understand no one, not even 
myself.” 

“You are my son,” said the other with a laugh. “ You are 
of my nature ; as you grow older you will resemble me more 
and more. You will speak to your sons as I speak to you. 
You will point out these duties to them, as I do to you.” 

“In everything you say,” cried Walter, “I perceive that 
you acknoledge a better way. Your plans are the second 
best— you say so. Is it worth living so long only to knoAV 
that you are embracing mediocrity after all,^ that you have 
nothing to rise to ? and yet you acknowledge it ! ” he said. 

The stranger looked at liim with a curious gaze. He who 
had never shown the smallest emotion before grew slightly 
paler at this question : but he laughed before he replied. 

“You are acute,” he said. “You can hit the blot. But 
the question in hand is not my character, but your practical 
career.” 

The sound of an oar here broke the extreme silence. 
The morning had fully come, the night coach from “ the 
south ” had arrived at the inn, and Duncan with the post- 
bag was coming along the stiU water, which cut like a trans- 
parent curd before, and Joined again in eddying reflections 
behind. Duncan bent his back to his oars unconscious of 
^any mystery ; his postbag, bringing news of all the w^orld, 
lay in front of him. He and his boat in every detail of out- 
line and color swam suspended in the light, in reflection, and 
swept double over the shining surface. How extraordinary 
was the contrast between his open-air placidity, his fresh 
morning countenance, the air of the hills about him, and the 
haggard countenance of his master, looking upon this coun- 
try fellow with an envy which was as foolish as it w^as gen- 
ume. Duncan did not know anything about the ideal. And 
yet in his way he followed his conscience, sometimes with 
pain and trouble, and at the cost of many a struggle— or else 
neglected its warnings, and took his own way as his master 
had done. Walter did not take this into consideration, but 
looked down upon his boatman’s' ruddy, honest counte- 
nance and square frame, stretching contentedly to his oars 
and thinking of nothing, with envy. Would it have been 
better to be born like that to daily labor and an unawakened 
intelligence? He turned round to say something, but his 
visitor had gone. There was not a shadow upon the vralls, 
not the sound of a step. Lord Erradeen had no longer the 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


303 


faintest movement of fear, but in its place a certain impa- 
tience and irritability as if this practical joke might be played 
upon him too often. And presently into the clear air rang 
the voice of Symington. 

“ For God’s sake, my lord, take care ! that is just where 
the poor lady was killed thirty years ago.” 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

The commonplace world has a strange look to a man who 
has himself come out of any great personal struggle, out of 
an excitement which no one knows anything about but liim- 
self . When he descends, with still the heave of strong emo- 
tion in his breast, to the trang[uil ordinary ways in which 
other men are coming and going, indifferent, frivolous, oc- 
cupied by the most trivial interests, and altogether unaware 
of the profound sentiment in his own breast, there is a mix- 
ture 01 contempt and relief in the manner in which he re- 
gards the extraordinary stolidity and unimpressionableness 
of his fellows. He is glad that they are unaware of what has 
happened to himself, yet cannot help scorning them a little 
for their want of penetration ; and it is a comfort to him to 
feel himself surrounded with the calm and indifference of 
strangers, yet he cannot help feeling that had they been of a 
higher nature, they must have divined the suppressed agita- 
tion with which he moves among them, his nerves all trem- 
bling with the strain through which they have passed. Thus 
Walter, when he landed at the village, met the looks of the 
countryfolk with a certain expectation of seeing some traces 
of the wondering curiosity with which they must be asking 
themselves what ailed Lord Erradeen ? and felt himself at 
once baffled and disappointed and relieved to find them full 
ot their usual friendliness and hospitality, but nothing more. 

“ We are real glad to see your lordship back,” Mrs. Mac- 
larlane said at the inn, “ and I hope you mean to bide, and no 
just run away when you’re getting acquaint with the country- 
side.” Big John, who was looking on while his horses were 
being cared for, gave a tug to his hat in honor of Lord Erra- 
deen, but scarcely withdrew his eyes from the other more in- 
teresting spectacle. And finally tne minister who was setting 
out upon one of his visitations, met his noble parishioner 
with the most cheerful good-morning, without any indication 
ol deeper insight. ' „ , . 

‘'You are welcome home. Lord Erradeen, he said as the 
landlady had said, “ and this time I hope we’ll see more of 
you. Are you stepping my way? It is jiist a most beautiiul 
inorning for this time of the year, and I am going toone ot 
my outlying corners; but you young gentlemen, ydiat with 


304 


THE WIZARD^ S SON. 


your shooting, and stalking, and ploys in general, are not ge- 
nerally much addicted to a simple walk/^ 

“ 1 am going youy way ; I am no great sportsman : I want 
to see Shaw who lives somewhere in this direction, I think*” 

“ I will show you the way with pleasure. Lord Erradeen ; 
but I doubt you will not find him in. He is out upon his 
rounds before now. He will be tackling you about Peter 
Thompson, and his farm. And I would be glad to say a 
word, too, if I might. They had been there all their lives : 
they never believed it possible that they would be sent away. 
It is very natural you should want to make the best of your 
property, but it wa^' a. blow; and though he was a little be- 
hind in his worldly nffairs, he was always good to the poor, 
and an elder, and well-living person. Such a one is a loss to 
the country-side; but it is every man’s duty, no doubt, to 
himself and his posterity, to make the best he can of his es- 
tate.” This the minister said with an air of polite disap- 
proval, yet acquiescence in a doctrine not to be gainsaid. 
“Political economy,” he added with, a laugh, “did not come 
into your curriculum, although I was at- college in Adam 
Smith’s palmy days.” 

“ If you think my actions have anything to do with Adam 
Smith!” cried Walter. It was a peculiarity of this young 
man, and perhaps of others beside, to resent above all things 
the imputation of a prudential motive. “ I know nothing 
about Thompson,” he added. “ I was absent, and I suppose 
did— whatever I am supposed to have done — on the impulse 
of the moment, as I am too apt to do.” 

“ That is a pity,” said the minister, “ especially when the 
well-being of others is concerned. You will pardon me, my 
lord, who am an old-fashioned person. The good of jmur 
property (if ye think this is for the good of your property) is 
always a motive, and some- will think a sound one : but to 
decide what is of great consequence to other folk without 
thought, because you happen to be tired, or worried, or in 
an ill way ” 

A natural flush of anger came to Walter’s face : but not- 
withstanding all his faults there was-somethinggenerous in 
him. He bit his lip to restrain some hasty word which was 
ready to burst forth, and said, after a moment, “.The reproof 
is .just. I had no right to be so inconsiderate. Still, as you 
say, the advantage of the property is a motive : there are 
some,” he added bitterly, with a sense that he was speaking 
at some third person, “ wjio think it the best in the 
world.” 

“ And so it is in the right view ” said Mr. Cameron ; 
“ that is what I always think when I read what those mis- 
guided creatures ar6 wanting in Ireland, to do away with 
landlords altogether— and some even among ourselves,” he 
added with that sense of the superiority of “ ourselves ” 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


305 

which dwells so calmly in the Scottish bosom. The last was 
said regretfully, with a shake of the head. 

“ I dare say,” said Walter, “ they have some reason in 
what they say.” 

Some, but not the best. They have the kind of reason 
that lies on the surface— in so much as to have a thing of 
your own is better than hiring it from another. But in that 
way Peter Thomson, honest man, would have been doomed 
without remedy before your time. Lord Erradeen. He 'has 
been getting into troubled waters for some years : he would 
have had to ..ell the farm and begone if it had been his : but 
with a good landlord like what I live in hopes to see— a 
good man in trouble would be helped over,the dangerous 
moment. He would be backed up when he was feeble. 
Perhaps it was just at all times an ideal : but that was what 
the old relationship might be.” 

‘‘ And the ideal is always iwoblematical,” said Walter. 
He w’as carrying on the same controversy still, taking the 
other side. “ Most men I think v/ould prefer to deal with 
their own even if it meant selling aiid losing, than be sub- 
ject to 'another man’s will — as it appears Thomson has- been 
to mine. That seems ridiculous indeed,” he cried, with a 
sudden outburst of feeliirg, “ that a good man as you say, 
should depend on the fantastic will or— such a fool as I have 
been.” 

“ My Lord Erradeen ! ” cried the minister in conster- 
nation. He thought the young man was going out of his 
wits, and began to be nervous. There was something, now 
he looked at him, wild in his air. “ I have no doubt,” he 
said soothingly, “ that your decision— mdst have seemed 
verj reasonable. I would not, though my feelings are 
enlisted and though I regret, go so far as to blame it 
myself.” 

“ Why ? ” said Walter, turning upon him. “ Because ?— 
surely every man ought to hate the courage of his opin- 
ions.’’ 

“ Not for that reason,” said the old minister, with a 
slight flush. I have never been one,” he went on with a 
smile, “ that have been much moved by the fear of man. 
No. It is because now they have been forced to make the 
move it may be better for themselves ; they would hdve 
struggled on, and perhaps at the end got through, but in 
Canada they will soon flourish and do well.” 

“ Not without a struggle there either, I suppose,” said 
Walter, with a fanciful disposition to resent the idea that 
Canada was an infallible cure. 

“ Not without a struggle— there you are right, my lord. 
There was first the sore, sore tug to pull up the roots of life 
that were so deeply implanted here ; and the long yoyage, 
which was terrible to the father and mother. It is very 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


306 


/ 


likely.” he added, “ that the old folk will never get over it). 
Transplanting does not do at their age. But then the youn^ 
ones, they are sure to thrive : and the old will die all thb 
sooner, which perhaps is not to be regretted when we get to 
the evening of life.” 

That is surely an inhuman'«doctrine,” Walter cried. 

Do ye think so, my young lord ? Well! It becomes the 
young to think so ; but for myself I have always seen a 
foundation of reason in the savage way of making an end of 
the old and helpless. Ibis better, far better for the survi- 
vors that they should have a horror of it, but for the aged 
themselves it is not so clear to me. They would be better 
away. An old man that has outlived all natural love and 
succor, and tlfat just lives on against his will because he 
cannot help it, that is a sad sight.” 

“ But not revolting, as it is to think of the other.” 

“ The other does not revolt me. If my heritors, yourself 
the fli'st, were to look in some fine day and bid me out to 
the bank of the loch and give me a heaze into it — in deep 
clear water, mind, none of your muddy weedy bits — I stipu- 
late for clean water,” the old minister said with a laugh at 
his own joke. 

“ If that is all that is to happen to your emigrants,” said 
Walter, “ they surely would havet)een as well here.” 

“ If that had been possible ; but you see, Lord Erradeen, 
though there are few things that ye cannot manage to get 
your way in, on your level of life, on the lower level when 
we cannot get what we want, we have to put up with what 
we can get. ’ 

“ Why should you think I can get my way ? I have to put 
up with what I can get, as you say, like everybody else.” 

• “ Well, yes,” said the minister, “ it is a kind of universal 
rule ; and it is just a sign of the disposition that conquers 
the world, that it will accept what it can get without making 
a moaning and a fretting over* it.” 

“ The second best,” said Walter with a half smile of 
irony ; it was strange to come from a teacher so dissimilar 
to this experienced old man and hear the same doctrine once 
more repeated. Mr. Cameron nodded his head several times 
in sign of assent. 

“What seems to our blindness often the second best ; 
though you may be sure it is the best for us, and chosen for 
us by a better judge than we are. This is my way to the 
right, up Glen-Dochart, and yonder is Shaw’s house, the 
white one among the trees. I am extremely glad to have had 
this conversation with you, my lord. And if I can be of use 
to you at any time in any question that may puzzle ye— oh, I 
do not stand upon my superior enlightenment, or even on 
my office, with the like of you that probably belong to an- 
other church ; but I" am an old man and have some expe- 


THE WIZARD^ S SON. 


X 

307 

rience. Good-day to you, Lord Erradeen.” The old minister 
looked back after he had left him, and waved his hand with 
a benevolent smile. 

Lord Erradeen walked on. He waved back a kindly 
salutation : the meeting, the talk with a man who was his 
equal, his superior, his inferior, all in one, in wholesome 
human inconsistency, was a kind of event for him, separating 
him by a distinct interval from the agitation of the night 
and morning, the terrible mental struggle, the philosophy 
that had fallen on his despair, not as healing dew, but like a 
baptism of fire, scorching his heart. Strange that the same 
reasoning should have come before him in this strange way, 
so accidental and without premeditation ! Mr. Cameron 
took everything from a different point of view. The second 
best to him meant manly resignation, devout religious faith- 
To accept it “ because it was chosen tor us by a better guide 
than we,” that was a difference almost incalculable. Ac- 
cording to the minster’s belief, “ what we wanted” was a 
thing to be given up nobly when it was proved to be God’s 
will so. But this point of view was so unlike the other that 
it brought a smile to Walter’s lips as he went on. God’s 
will, what had that to do with pretty schemes to enrich a 
family ? If it should so happen that he, driven by persecu- 
tion, by temptations too strong to be resisted, by the feeble- 
ness of a spirit not capable of contending with fate, yielded 
once more to this influence which had operated so strangely 
upon his race, would that be God’s will ? — would it be ever 
possible to look upon it as “ chosen by a better judge ” ? 
Walter was not used to the discussion of such problems ; 
and he ’*tv^as weak with mental struggles and want of rest. 
He lingered for a moment before Shaw’s house as he passed 
it^ then rejected, with the sudden capricious impatience of 
his nature, the intention, only half formed, of seeing Shaw, 
and walked on with a fantastic sense of relief in having got 
rid of this disagreeable duty. “ Another time will do just 
as well,” he said to himself, and hurried on as if his walk 
had now a more definite, as well as a more agreeable, aim. 
But, as a matter of fact, he had no aim at all, and did not 
know where he was going or what he intended. Indeed he 
intended nothing. Perhaps he would have said “ to think,” 
had he been closely questioned ; but it was a stretch of 
meaning to apply the term to that confusion of his thoughts 
in which everything seemed to be turning round and round. 
It was not like the sharp and keen dialogue of last night, in 
which, though all went on within his own spirit, there were 
two minds engaged, himself and another. Now he was left 
to himself ; no one contending with him — no one helping, 
even by contention, to keep him to an actual point, and give 
energy and definiteness to the mental process going on 
within him. That process was still going on ; but it was as 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


30S 

if the wheels of a complicated and delicate machine had lost 
their guiding principle, and were all circling and whirring- 
in space without an object, Avitli the same show of motion as 
when fully employed, the same creak, and jar, and grind. 
Now and then there would come uppermost a phrase re- 
served out of the confusion— “ the second best ” “ some- 

thing very good in its way ; with whicli the .majority of 
mankind is quite content and may be very happy ; ” “ what 
we call in our blindness the second best ” : as his two oracles 
had said to him. Whether it was the practical level which 
every man must content himself with after the failure of the 
ideal, or whether it was the real best, chosen for us by “ a 
better judge,” this was what both had put before him. The 
two descriptions, so different, yet both perhaps true, came 
up before him at intervals with something of strange regu- 
larity, as if the words had been printed upon the constantly 
turning wheels. He walked very quickly along the moor- 
land road, not caring where he went, nor seeing what was 
round him. The fresh air blew in his face, with the force 
and keenness which an autumn wind has in a deeply-scooped 
and somewhat narrow glen among the hills, but seemed 
only to quicken the pace of the turning wheels, and all that 
machinery circling giddily, grinding out nothing, making 
his very soul sick and dizzy as it went on and on. 

Suddenly the whirr aiid movement in his head calmed 
and stopped. A homely figure, in color and aspect like an 
embodiment of those wild, sheep-feeding, rugged, but not 
majestic slopes that hemmed in the valley on either side, 
became visible coming down a path that led to the main 
road on which Walter was. It was a man, tall andaiargely 
developed, but without any superfluous bulk, roughly clad, 
roughly shod lifting his feet high, like one accustomed to 
bog and heather, with the meditative slow pace of a rustic 
vdiose work demanded no hurry, and who had time for 
thought in all he did. Walter, with the quick sense of his 
youth quickened still more by the excitement of the cir- 
cumstances amid which, once, and only once, he had seen 
Duncan Fraser, recognized him at once,* and something like 
the liveliness of a new impulse moved him. Who could tell 
but that this man of the hills might be an oracle too, and out 
of the silence of his lowly life might have brought something 
to help a soul in peril ? Walter waited till the cot, ter came 
up to him, who was not on his part so quick to recognize his 
landlord, of whom he had seen so little, and thought it 
might be some “ tourist,” or -other Southland person, igno- 
rant of these parts, and wanting information about the way, 
which was not inducement enough to make Duncan quicken 
his steps. When they met, he perceived that he had “ seen 
the face before,” but went no further, and awaited with a 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


309 

certain air of stolid gravity what the stranger might have to 
say. 

“ You are— Fraser— of that glen up there ? I almost forget 
how you call it — Truach-Glas.” 

“ Ay, 1 am just sae ; Duncan Fraser, at your service,” 
replied the man, not without the slight hauteur of a High-, 
lander interrogated imperatively by a personage in whom he 
acknowledges no right to do so. 

You don’t remember me, apparently,” Walter said. 

“ Ho, I cannot just say that 1 do ; and yet I’ve seen your 
face fore,” said Duncain with a curious look. 

“ Never mind that. I want you to tell me if you are 
contented now, and happy in your glen, now that ’you- are 
free of all your trouble about rent.” 

Duncan’s first impulse was to say. What is that to you, I 
would like to ken ? But the words had already set the 
slower mechanism of his brain to work; and, after a 
moment he took his blue bonnet from his head, and with a 
bow in which there v/as a certain rustic dignity, said — 

“ You’ll be the laird, my Lord Erradeen ? I have good 
cause to ken your face that was once to us all just like the 
face of an angel out o’ heaven,” 

“You make too much of it,” said Walter, with a smile ; 
for the expression pleased him, in spite of himself. “ Ho 
one could have done otherwise in my place.” 

“ The auld wives,” said Duncan, with a little huskiness 
in his throat, “ do not think sae, sir. They mind you at their 
Books, morning and night.” 

Walter did not know very well what “ minding him at 
the Books ” meant ; but he guessed that somehow or other 
it must refer to prayers ; and he said somewhat lightly — 

“ Do you think that will do me much good ? ” 

Duncan’s honesty face turned upon him a look of dis- 
pleasure. The hillside patriarch put on his bonnet gravely. 

“ It should, if there’s truth in Scripture,” he said, some- 
what sternly ; “ but nae doubt it is just.one of the most awfu’ 
mysteries how a wilful soul will baffle baith God’s goodwill 
and glide folks’ prayers.” 

This was so curiously unlike anything he expected, that 
Lord Erradeen gave his humble monitor one startled glance, 
and for the moment was silenced. He resumed, however, a 
minute after, feeling a certain invigoration come to him 
from his contact vdth simple nature. 

“ I acknowledge,” he said, “ thougii you are a little hard 
upon me, Fraser, that I have brought this on myself. But I 
want to know about you, how things are going. ^ Are you 
satisfied with your position now ? And is everything made 
smooth for you by the remittal of the rent ? ” 

At' this Duncan become in his turn confused. 

“ Hae doubt,” he said, “ it has been a great help, sir— my 


310 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


lord. Ye’ll excuse me, but I’m little used to lordships, and 
1 canna get my mouth about it.” 

“ Never mind my lordship. I want to know the real truth. 
Your minister has been talking to me about Thomson— the 
man at the farm.” Walter pointed vaguely to the hillside, 
having no idea where Peter Thomson’s farm was, about 
w'hich so much had been said. “ He has been sent away 
while you have stayed. Let me know which has been the 
best.” 

Dmican looked niore embarrassed than ever, and shuffled 
from one foot to the other, looking down upon the wet and 
brilliant green of the grass on which he stood. 

“We were all muckle obliged to you, my lord; and no 
one of us has grudged to say sae,” he said. 

“ But that IS not the question,” Walter cried, with a little 
impatience. 

“ To flit the old folk would have been impossible,” said 
Duncan, as if speaking to himself. “ It was just a deliver- 
ance, and the Lord’s doing, and wonderful in our eyes. But, 
sir, there is nothing in this world that is pure and good. The 
soil is cauld ; there is little will come out of it ; and though 
we’re far out o’ the way o’ the world in our bit glen, I reckon 
that what ye ca’ progress and a’ that, has an eneck whether 
or no. We want mair than our forbears wanted. No, no 
just education and advancement: my uncle Willie was 
brought up a minister, and got a’ the education my Robbie 
is ettling at, though my grandfather had, maybe, less to 
spare than me. But just there is a difference in the ways 
o’t. And maybe if it had come to the worse, and ye had 
driven us out, instead of being sae generous ” 

“ It would have been better for you,” said Walter, as his 
companion paused. 

“I’m. not saying that. It was just deliverance. I will 
tell ye mair, my lord. If I had been driven out, me and my 
auld mother, and my little bairns, I could have found it in 
my heart to curse ye, sae young, sae rich, sae well off, and 
sae inhuman. And the auld wife’s death would have lain at 
vour door, and the bairns would never have forgotten it, 
however well they had prospered, no even when they came 
to be reasonable men, and could see baith sides of the ques- 
tion like me ; they would have carried it with them to yon 
New World, as they call it; it would have grown to be a 
tradition and a meesery for ever. Now,” said Duncan, with 
hoarse half-laugh of emotion, “ the sting is out of it what- 
ever happens.” 

“ I am glad of that, anyhow,” said Walter. 

“ And so am I— and so am I ! When ye have a sense of 
being wranged in your heart, it’s like a burnin’ wound, like 
thae puir Irish, the Lord help them ! And what was our 
pickle siller to the like of you? But ” Duncan said, and 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


311 

paused, not knowing how to proceed with due respect and 
gratitude for what his landlord had done. 

“ But— what you expected has not been realized ? the rent, 
after all, made but a small difference— the relief was not 
what you hoped ? ” 

“ I am just incapable, sir, of making ye a right answer,” 
said Duncan, with vehemence. “ It’s just the effeck of the 
times, and nae fault o’ yours or ours— at least that is all I 
can make of it. We want mair than our forbears wanted. 
We are no so easy content. The lads at the college caima 
live as simple as they once lived. That makes it harder for 
everybody. The callants ! I would not bind them to a life 
like mine ; they would have done better for themselves, 
though it would have killed granny, and been a sore burden 
upon Jeannie and me.” 

“ The fact is, Duncan, to have your own way is not much 
better than to have somebody else’s way, and that there is 
nothing worth making a fight about,” Walter said, with a 
bitterness which his humble companion did not understand, 
and still less approved. 

. “No that, my lord,” said Duncan, “ but just that nothing 
that is mortal is perfe ct blessedness, except what is said in the 
psalm, ‘ that man— that walketh not astray.’ Life is a strup 

f ie for the like of us, and maybe for most other folk. We 
ave just to put the evil and the good against one another, 
and rejoice when the good is a wee predominant over the 
evil.” 

He used longer words perhaps than an Englishman of his 
rank would have used ; and there was a something of Celtic 
fine manners and natural dignity about him which gave im- 
portance to his speech. 

“ That means— a compromise ; no ideal in this world, no 
absolute good, but only a practical something that we can 
get along with.” . 

Walter said this with a scorn of it, y^t growing belief in 
it, which gave strange vehemence to his tone. He did not 
expect his rustic companion to undetstand him, nor did he 
think of any response. 

“ It is just this, sir,” said Duncan, “ that here we have nae 
continuing ceety, but look for one to come.” 


CHAPTER XXXHI. 

Was this then the conclusion of all things— that there 
was nothing so perfect that it was worth a man’s while to 
struggle for it ; that any officious interference with the re- 
cognized and existing was a mistake ; that nothing was 
either the best or the worst, but all things mere degrees in a 


312 THE WIZARD'S SOH. 

round of the comparative, in which a little more or a littlo 
less was of no importance, and the most strenuous efforts 
tended to failure as much as indifference ? W alter return- 
ing to the old house which was his field of battle, questioned 
himself thus, with a sense of despair which was not lessened 
by the deeper self-ridicule within him, which asked, was he 
then so anxious for the best, so ready to sacrifice his comfort 
for an ideal excellence ? That he, of all men, should have 
this to do, and yet that, bemg done, it should be altogether 
ineffectual, was a sort of climax of clumsy mortal failure and 
hopelessness. The only good thing he had done was the re- 
storation of those halt evicted cotters, and that was but a 
mingled and uncertain good, it appeared. What was the 
use of any struggle ? If it was his own personal freedom 
alone that he really wanted, why here it was within his 
power to purchase— or at least a moderate amount of it — a 
comparative freedom, as everything was comparative.. His 
mind by this time had ceased to be able to think, or even to 
perceive with any distinctness the phrase or motif inscribed 
upon one of those confused and idly-turning wheels of the 
mental will which had stood in the place of thought to him. 
It was the afternoon when he got back, and ever^hing with- 
in him had fallen into an afternoon dreariness.. He lingered 
when he landed on the waste bit of grass that lay between 
the little landing-place and the door of the old castle. He 
had no heart to go in and sit down mioccupded in that room 
which had witnessed so many strange meetings. He was no 
longer indeed afraid of his visitor there, but rather looked 
forward with a kind of relief to the tangible presence which 
delivered him from meetings of the mind more subtle and 
painful. But he had no expectation of any visitor ; nor was 
there anything for him to do except to sit down and perhaps 
attempt to read, which meant solely a delivering over of 
himself to his spiritual antagonists — for how was it possible 
to give his mind to any fable of literature in the midst of a 
parable so urgent and all-occupying, of his own ? 

He stood therefore idly upon the neglected turf, watching 
the ripple of the water as it lapped against the rough stones 
on the edge. The breadth of the loch was entirely hidden 
from him by the projection of the old tower, which descended 
into the water at the right, and almost shut off this highest 
corner of Loch Houran into a little lakelet of its own. Wal- 
ter heard the sound of oars and voices f Am the loch without 
seeing any one ; but that was usual enough, and few people 
invaded his privacy ; so that he was taken by surprise when, 
suddenly raising his eyes, he was aware of the polished and 
gilded galley from Birkenbraes, in which already Mr. W^il- 
liamson, seated in the stern, had perceived and was hailing 
him. “ Hallo, my Lord Erradeen ! Here we’ve all come to 
see ye this fine afternoon. I told them we should find ye un- 


THE WIZARHS SOH, 


313 

der your own vine and your own figtree.” This speech was 
accompanied by a general laugh. The arrival of ‘'such a 
party, neralded by such laughter in a desolate house, with 
tew servants and no readiness for any such emergency, to a 
young man in Walter’s confused and distracted condition 
would not, it may be supposed, have been very welcome in 
any case, and at present in his • exhaustion and dismay he 
stood and gazed at them with a sort of horror. There was 
not even a ready servitor like Hamish to assist in the disem- 
barkation. Duncan had rowed cheerfully off upon some 
other errand after landing his master, and old Symington 
and old Macalister were singularly ill adapted for the ser- 
vice. Lord Erradeen did his best, with a somev/hat bad 
grace, to receive the boat at the landing-place. The gravity 
of his countenance was a little chill upon the merry party, 
but the Williamsons were not of a kind that _is easily dis- 
couraged. 

Oh, yes, here we all are,” said the millionaire. “ I would 
not let our English visitor, Mr. Braithwaite here, leave with- 
out showing him the finest thing on the loch. So I just told 
him I knew I might take the liberty. Hoot ! we know ye 
have not your household here, and that it is’ just an old 
family ruin, and not bound to produce tea and scones like 
the Forresters’ isle. Bless me ! I hope we have a soul above 
tea and scones,” Mr. Williamson cried with his hearty 
laugh. 

By this time the young, hardy, half-clad rowers had 
scrambled out, and grouped themselves in various attitudes, 
such as would suit a new and light-hearted Michael Angelo 
— one kneeling on the stones hdding the bow of the boat, 
another with one foot on sea and one on shore helping the 
ladies out. Walter in his dark dress, and still darker pre- 
occupied countenance, among all those bronzed and cheerful 
youths looked like a being from another sphere; but the 
contrast was not much to his advantage either in body or 
mental atmosphere. He looked so grave and so unlike the 
joyous hospitality of a young housekeeper surprised by a 
sudden arrival, that Katie, always more on her guard than 
her father, looked at him with a countenance as grave as his 
own. 

“ I am not the leader of this expedition. Lord Erradeen,” 
she said; “you must not blame me for the invasion. My 
father took it into his head, and when that happens there is 
nothing to be done. I don’t mean I was not glad to be 
brought here against my will,” she added, as his face, by a 
strain of politeness wliich was far from easy to 'him, began 
to brighten a little. Katie was not apt .to follow the leading 
of another face and adopt the woman’s role of submission, 
but she felt herself so completely in the wrong, an intruder 
where she was very sure she and her party, exuberant in 


THE WIZARD ’S SON. 


3H 

spirits and gayety were not wanted, that she was compelled 
to watch his expression and make her apologies with a de- 
ference quite unusual to her. “ 1 hope it will not be a very 
great — interruption to you,” she said after a momentary 
pause. 

“ That could never matter,” Walter said stately, in of- 
fence. “ I could have wished to have notice and to have 
received my friends at Auchnasheen rather than here. But 
being here— you must excuse the primitive conditions of the 
place.” 

“ Hoot ! there is nothing to excuse — a fine old castle, older 
than the flood— just the very thing that is wanted for the 
picturesque, ye see Braithwaite ; for, as ye were remarking, 
we are in general too modern for a Highland loch. But 
you’ll not call this modern,” said Mr. Williamson. “Will 
that old body not open the door to ye when he sees ye have 
friends ? Lord ! that just beats all ! That is a step beyond 
Caleb Balderston.” 

“ Papa ! ” cried Katie in keen reproof, “ we have been 
quite importunate enough already. I vote we all go over to 
Auchnasneen — the view there is much finer, and we could 
send over for Oona ” 

“ Is it common in this country,” said the member of Par- 
liament, “ to have two residences so very near ? It must be 
like going next door for change of air when you leave one 
for the other. Lord Erradeen. 

At this there was that slight stir among the party which 
takes place when an awkward suggestion is m.ade ; the young 
men and the girls began to talk hurriedly, raising up a sort 
of atmosphere of voices around the central group. This 
however was curiously and suddenly penetrated by the re- 
ply which— who ?— was it Walter ? made, almost as it seemed 
without a pause. 

“ Kot common— but yet not unknown in a country which 
has kno\vn a great deal of fighting in its day. The old castle 
is our family resource in danger. We do our family business 
here, our quarrels ; and afterwards retire to Auchnasheen, 
the house of peace (perhaps you don’t know that names have 
meaning hereabouts) to rest.” 

There was a pause as slight, as imperceptible to the 
ignorant, as evident to the instructed as had been the stir at 
the first sound of those clear tones. Walter himself to more 
than one observer had seemed as much startled as anv of 
them. He turned quickly round towards the speaker with 
a sudden blanching of his face which had been pale enough 
before ; but this was only momentary ; afterwards all that 
was remarkable in him was a strange look of resolution and 
determined self-control. Perhaps the only one completely 
unmoved was the Englishman, who at once accepted the 
challenge, and stepped forward to the individual who it was 


THE WIZARD^ S SON, 


315 

evident to him was the only duly qualified cicerone in the 
party, with eager satisfaction. 

“ That is highly interesting. Of course the place must be 
full of tradition,” he said. 

“ With your permission, Walter, I will take the part of 
cicerone,” the new voice said. To some of the party it 
seemed only a voice. The ladies and the young men stumbled 
against each other in their eager curiosity about the stranger. 
“I will swear there was nobody near Erradeen when we 
landed,” said young Tom Campbell in the nearest ear that 
presented itself ; but of course it was the number of people 
about which caused this, and it could be no shadow with 
whom the M. P. went forth delighted, asking a hundred 
questions. “ You are a member of the family?’’ Mr. Braith- 
waite said. He was not tall, and his companion was of a 
splendid presence. The Englishman had to look up as he 
spoke, and to quicken his somewhat short steps as he walked 
to keep up with the other’s large and dignified pace. Katie 
followed with Walter. There was a look of agitation and 
alarm in her face ; her heart beat she could not tell why. 
She was breathless as if she had been running a race. She 
looked up into Lord Erradeen’s face tremulously, not like 
herself. “ Is this gentleman— staying with you?” she said 
in a scarcely audible voice. 

Walter was not agitated for his part, but he had little 
inclination to speak. He said “ Yes and no more. 

“ And we have been — sorry for you because you were 
alone? Is it a— relation? is it — ? You have never,” said 
Katie, forcing the words out with a difficulty which aston- 
ished her, and for which she could not account, “ brought 
him to Birkenbraes.” 

Walter could not but smile. A sort of feeble amusement 
flew over his mind touching the surface uito a kind of ripj)le. 
“ Shall I ask him to come ? ” he said. 

Katie was following in the very footsteps of this alto- 
gether new and unexpected figure. There was nothing like 
him, it seemed to her, in all the country side. His voice 
dominated every other sound, not loud, but clear. It suK 
dued her little being altogether. She would not lose a word, 
yet her breath was taken away by an inexplicable terror. 

“He is— like somebody,” she said, panting, “out of a 
book,” and could say no more. 

Old Macalister came towards them from the now open 
door, at which stood Symington in attendance. The ser- 
vants had been disturbed by the unusual sounds of the ar- 
rival. Macalister’s old face was drawn and haggard. 

“Where will ye be taking all thae folk?” he said, no 
doubt forgetting his manners in his bewilderment. “ Come 
back, ye’ll get into mischief that back road,” he cried, put- 
ting out his hand to catch the arm of Braithwaite, who. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


316 

guided by the stranger, was passing the ordinary entrance. 
He became quite nervous and angry when no heed was paid 
to him. “My lord, you’re no so well acquaint yourself. 
Will you let that lad "just wander and break his neck V ” he 
cried, with a kind of passion. 

“ Never mind,” said Walter, with a strange calm which 
was as imaccountable as all the rest. “ Will you tell your 
wife to prepare for these ladies— when we come back.” 

Here Symington too came forth to explain somewhat 
loudly, addressing his master and Braithwaite alternately, 
tliat the roads were not safe about the old castle, that the 
walls were crumbling, that a person not a,cquaint might get 
a deadly fall, with unspeakable anxiety in his eyes. The 
party all followed, notwithstandmg, led by the stranger, 
whom even the least of them now thought she could distin- 
guish over Katie’s head, but of whom the servants took no 
notice, addressing the others in the front as if he had not 
been there. 

“ My lord, ye’ll repent if ye’ll no listen to us,” Symington 
said, laying his hand in sudden desperation on Waiter’s 
arm. 

“You fool!” cried the young man, “can’t you see we 
have got a safe guide ? ” 

Symington gave a look round him wildly of the utmost 
terr()r. Ills scared eyes seemed to retreat into deep caverns 
of anguish and fear. He stood back out of the way of the 
somewhat excited party, who laughed, and yet scarcely could 
laugh with comfort, at him. The youngsters had begun to 
chatter : they v/ere not afraid of anything— Still— ; tliough 
it was certainly amusing to see that old man’s face. 

Turning round to exchange a look with Macalister, 
Symington came in contact with Mr. Williamson’s solid and 
cheerful bulk, who brought up the rear. “ I’m saying,” said 
the millionaire confidentially, “ who’s this fine fellow your 
master’s got with him? A grand figure of a man ! It’s not 
often you see it, but I always admire it. A relation, too ; 
what relation ? I would say it must be on the mother’s side, 
for I’ve never seen or heard tell of him. Eh ? who’s stayirai* 
with your master ? I’m asking ye. Are ye deaf or doited 
that ye cannot answer a simple question ?” 

“ Na, there is nothing the matter with me : but 1 think 
the rest of the world has just taken leave of their senses,” 
Symington said. 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


317 


CHAPTER XXXIY. 

»Ttjlia Herbert had failed altogether in her object during 
, ot the season which her relations had afforded her. 
Walter had not even coifne to call. He had sent a hnrried 
note excpmg himself, and explaining that he was “obliged 
to leave town, ’ an excuse by which nobody was deceived, 
xt IS not by any easy process that a girl, who begins with all 
a girl s natural pride and pretensions, is brought down to 
lecognize tne fact that a man is avoiding and fleeing frcm 
her, and yet to follow and seek him. Hard poverty, and the 
memories of a life spent in the tiny cottage with her mother, 
without any enlargement or wider atmosphere, and w-ilh 
way 01 escape in which there was hope or even pcs- 
pbility, had brought Julia to this pass.' She had nothing in 
her life that Avas worth doing except to scheme how^ she 
couIcl dress and present the best appearance, and Iioay she 
could, get hold of and secure that only stej^ping stone by 
whicli she could mount out of it— a m_an who w cnld marry 
her and open to her the doors of something better. In every 
other way it is worth the best exertions of either man or 
woman to get these doors opened, and to come to the 1 cssi- 
bility of better things ; and a poor girl who has been trained 
to nothing more exalted, who sees no other way, not wit to 
standing that this poor way of her’s revolts every finer spirit, 
is there not something pitiful and tragic in her struggles, 
her sad and degrading attempt after a new beginning f bloAv 
much human force" is wasted upon it, what heart-sickness, 
what self-contempt is undergone, w hat a debasement of all 
that is best and finest in her ! She has no pity, no sympathy 
in her pursuit, but ridicule, contempt, the derisicn of one 
half of humanity, the indignation of the other. And yet her 
object after all may not be entirely despicable. She may 
feel with despair that there is no other way. She may in- 
tend to be air that is good and noble w^ere but this one step 
made, this barrier crossed, the means of a larger life attained. 
It would be better for her no doubt to be a governess, or even 
a seamstress, or to put up with the chill meannesses of a 
poverty-stricken existence, and starve, modestly keeping up 
appearances with her last breath. But all women are not 
born self-denying. When they are young, the blood runs as 
warmly in their veins as in that of men ; they too want life, 
movement, sunshine and happiness. The mere daylight, the 
air, a new frock, however hardly obtained, a dance, a little 
admiration, suffice for them when they are very young; tut 
when the next chapter comes, and the girl learns to calcu- 
late that, saving some great matrimonial chance, there is no 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


318 

prospect for her but the narrowest and most meagre and 
monotonous existence under heaven, the life of a poor, very- 
poor single woman who cannot dig and to beg is ashamed ; 
IS it to be wondered at if she makes a desperate struggle 
anyhow (and alas ! there is but one how) to escape. Perhaps 
she likes too, poor creature, the little excitement of flirtation, 
the only thing which replaces to her the manifold excite- 
ments which men of her kind indulge in— the tumultuous 
joys of the turf, the charms of play, the delights of the club, 
the moors, and sport in general, not to speak of all those 
developments of pleasure so-called, which are impossible to 
a woman. She cannot dabble a little in vice as a man can do, 
and yet return again, and be no worse thought of than be- 
fore. Both for amusement and profit she has this one way, 
which, to be sure, ansAvers the purpose of all the others in 
being destructive of the best part in her, spoiling her char- 
acter, and injuring her reputation— but for hoAV much less 
a cause, and Avith hoAV little recompense in the AA^ay of enjoy- 
ment ! The husband-hunting girl is fair game to whosoever 
has a stone to throAV, and very feAv are so charitable as to 
say. Poor soul ! Julia Herbert had been as bright a creature 
at eighteen as one could AAush to see. At tAA^enty-four she 
Avas bright still, full of animation, full of good humor, 
clever in her Avay, very pretty, high-spirited, amusing 
— and still so young! But hoAv profoundly had it been 
impressed upon her that she must not lose her time! 
and hoAV Avell she kneAv all the opprobrious epithets that 
are directed against a young woman as she draAvs to- 
Avards thirty— ttie very fioAver and prime of her life. Was 
she to blame if she Avas influenced by all that AA^as,said 
to this effect, and determined to fight AAuth a sort of mad 
persistence, for the hope Avhich seemed so Avell Avithin her 
reach ? Were she but once established as Lady Erradeen, 
there Avas not one of her youthful sins that AAmuld be re- 
membered against her. A veil of light Avould fall over her 
and all her peccadilloes as soon as she had put on her bridal 
veil. Her mends, instead of feeling her a burden and per- 
plexity, Avould be proud of Julia ; theyAvould put forth their 
cousiiihood eagerly, and claim her — even those aaJio AA^ere 
most anxious noAv to demonstrate the extreme distance of 
the connection— as near and dear. And she liked Walter, 
and thought she Avould have no difficulty in loving him, had 
she eA'-er a right to do so. He AA^as not too good for her ; she 
Avould have something to forgive m him, if he too in her 
might have something to forgive. She Avould make him a 
good Avife, a AAufe of AA^hom he should have no occasion to be 
ashamed. All these considerations made it excusable— more 
than excusable, almost laudable— to strain^ a point for so 
great an end. 

A.nd in her cousin’s wife she had, so far as this Avent, a 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


319 

real friend. Lady Herbert not only felt that to get .Julia 
settled was most desirable, and that, as Lady Erradeen, she 
would become a most creditable cousin, and one who might 
return the favors showed to her, biit also, which is less gen- 
eral, felt within herself a strong inclination to help and 
further Julia’s object. She thought favorably of Lord 
Erradeen. She thought he would not be difficult to manage 
(which was a mistake as the reader knows). She thought he 
was not so strong as Julia, but once fully within the power 
of her fascmations, would fall an easy prey. She did not 
think less of him for running away. It was a sign of weak- 
ness, if also of wisdom ; and if he could be met in a place 
from which he could not run away, it seemed to her that the 
victory would be easy. And Sir Thomas must have a moor 
somewhere to refresh him after the vast labors of a session 
in which he had recorded so many silent votes. By dint of 
having followed him to many a moor. Lady Herbert had a 
tolerable geographical knowledge of the Highlands, and it 
was not very difficult for her to find out that Mr. Campbell 
of Eller more, with his large family, would be obliged this 
year to let his shootings. Everything was settled and pre- 
pared accordingly to further Julia’s views, without any 
warning on the point having reached Walter. She had 
arrived indeed at the Lodge, whioh was some miles down 
the loch, beyond Birkenbraes, a few days after Walter’s 
arrival, and thus once more, though he was so far from 
thinking of it, his old sins, or rather his old follies, were 
about to find him out. 

Lady Herbert had already become known to various 
people on the loch side. She had been at the Lodge since 
early in September, 'and had been called upon by friendly 
folk on all sides. There had been a thousand chances that 
Walter would have found her at luncheon with all the others 
on his first appearance at Birkenbraes, and Julia had 
already been introduced to that hospitable house. Katie did 
not recognize Lady Herbert either by name or countenance. 
But she recognized Julia as soon as she saw her. 

“ I think- you know Lord Erradeen ? ” was almost her 
first greeting, for Katie was a young person of very straight- 
forward methods. 

“ Oh yes,” Julia had answered with animation, “ I have 
known him all my life.” 

“ I suppose you know that he lives here ? ” 

Upon this Julia turned to her chaperon, her relation m 
whose hands all these external questions v/ere. 

“ Did you know, dear Lady Herbert, that Lord Erradeen 
lived here ? ” 

“ Oh yes, he has a place close by. Didn’t I tell you ? A 
pretty house, with that old castle near it, which I pointed 
out to youon the loch,” Lady Herbert said. 


320 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


“ How small the world is ! ” cried Julia ; “ wherever you 
go you are always knocking up against somebody. Fancy 
Walter Methven living here ! ” 

Katie was not taken in by this little play. She was not 
even irritated as she had been in Burlington House. If it 
might so happen that some youthful bond existed between 
Lord Erradeen and this girl, Katie was not the woman to 
use any unfair means against it. 

“ You will be sure to meet him,” she said calmly. “ We 
hope he is not going to shut himself up as he did last 
year.” 

“ Oh tell me ! ” Julia cried, with overflowing interest, “ is 
there not some wonderful ghost story ? something about his 
house being haunted ; and he has to go and present himself 
and have an interview with the ghost ? Captain Underwood, 
I remember told us ” 

“ Did you know Captain Underwood ? ” said Katie, in 
that tone which says so much. 

And then she turned to her other guests : for naturally 
the house was full of jjeople, and as was habitual in Birk- 
enbraes a large party from outside had come to lunch. The 
Williamsons Avere discussed with much freedom among the 
visitors from the Lodge when they went aw'ay. Sir Thomas 
declared that the old man was a monstrous fine old fellow, 
and his claret w(;^th coming from Devonshire to drink. 

“ Ko expense spared in that establishment,” he cried ; 
“ and there^s a little girl I should say, that w^ould be Avorth 
a youHg fellow’s while.” 

* He despised Julia to the bottom of his heart, but he 
thought of his young friends on the other side without any 
such elevated sentiment, and decided it? might not be a bad 
thing to have Algy Kewton doAvn, to whom it was indis- 
pensable that he should marry money. Sir Thomas, how- 
ever, had not the energy to carry his intention out. 

Next day it so happened that Lady Herbert had to return 
the Ausit of Mrs. Forrester, who— though she always ex- 
plained her regret at not being able to entertain her friends— 
was punctilious in making the proper calls. The English 
ladies Avere “ charmed ” AAuth the isle. They said there had 
never been anything so original, so delightful, so unconven- 
tional ; ignoring altogether, with a politeness \Vhich Mrs. 
Forrester thought was “ pretty,”^ any idea that necessity 
might be the motive of the mother and daughter in settling 
there. 

“ I am sure it is very kind of you to say so ; but it is not 
just a matter of choice, you knoAv. It is just an old house 
that came to me from the Macnabs — my mother’s side. And 
it proved very convenient when all the boys Avere aAA^ay and 
nothing but Don a and me. Wonjen want but little in com- 
parison AAoth geptlemen ; and though it is a little out of the 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


321 


way and inconvenient in the winter season, it is wonderful 
how few days there are that we can’t get out. I am very well 
content just with the Walk when there is a glint of sun- 
shine ; l)ut Oona, she just never minds the weather. Oli, you 
will not be going just yet ! Tell Mysie, Oona, to bring ben 
the tea. If it is a little early what does that matter ? It 
always helps to keep you warm on the' loch, and my old cook 
is rather noted for her scones. She just begins as soon a:; 
she hears there’s a boat, and she will be much disappointed 
if ye don’t taste them. Our friends are all very kind ; we 
have somebody or other every day.” 

“ It is you who are kind, I think,” Lady Herbert said. 

“Ho, no; two ladies — it is nothing we have it in our 
power to do : but a cup of tea, it is just a charity to accept 
it ; and as you go down to your boat I will let you see the 
view.” 

Julia, for her part, felt, or professed, a ^reat interest in 
the girl living the life of a recluse on this little island. 

“ It must be delightful,” she said with enthusiasm; “but 
don’t you sometimes feel a little dull ? It is the sweetest 
place I ever saw. But shouldn’t you like to walk on to the 
land without always requiring, a boat ? ” 

“ I don’t think I have considered the subject,” Oona said ; 
“ it is our home, and we do not think whether or not we 
should like it to be different.” 

“ Oh what a delightful state of mind ! I don’t think I 
could be so contented anywhere— 'SO happy in myself. I 
think,” said Julia with an ingratiating look, “that you must 
be very happy in yourself.” 

:^ona laughed. “As much and as little as other people,” 
sne said. 

“ Oh not as little ! I should picture to myself a hundred 
things I wanted as soon as I found myself shut up here. I 
should want to be in town. I should want to go shopping. 
I should wish for— everything I had not got. Don’t you im- 
mediately think of dozens of things you want as soon as you 
know you can’t get them ? But you are so good ! ” 

“ If that is being good ! Ho, I think I rather refrain from 
wishing for what I should like when I see I am not likely to 
get it.” 

“ I call that goodness itself— but perhaps it is Scotch. I 
have the greatest respect for the Scotch,” said Julia. “ They 
are so sensible.” Then she laughed, as at some private joke 
of her own, and said under her breath, “Hot all, however,” 
and looked towards Kinloch Houran. 

They were seated on the bench, upon the little platform, 
at the top of the ascent which looked down upon the castle. 
The sound of Mrs. Forrester’s voice was quite audible be- 
hind in the house, pouring forth a gentle stream.. The sun 
was setting in a sky full of gorgeous purple and golden 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


322 

clouds ; the keen air of the hills blowing about them. But 
Julia was warmly dressed, and only shivered a little out of 
a sense of what was becoming : and Oona was wrapped in 
the famous fur cloak. 

“ It is so strange to come upon a place one has heard so 
much of,” she said, ‘'ll^'o doubt you know Lord Erra- 
deen ? ” 

The name startled Oona in spite of herself. She was not 
prepared for any allusion to him. She colored involuntarily, 
and gave her companion a look of surprise. 

“ Do you know him ? ” she asked. 

“ Oh, so well ! I have known him almost all my life — 

people said indeed ” said Julia, breaking off suddenly 

with a laugh. “But that was nonsense. Lou know how 
people talk. Oh, yes, we have been like brother and sister— 

or if not quite that— at least . Oh yes, I know Walter, 

and his mother, and everything about him. He has been a 
little strange since he came here ; though indeed I have no 
reason to say so, for he is always very nice to me. When he 
came home last year I saw a great deal of him ; but I don’t 
think he was very communicative about — what do you call 
it?— Kinlock ” 

“ He was not here long,” Oona said. 

“ Ko ! He did not give himself time to find out how many 
nice people there are. He did not seem very happy about it 
when he" came back. You see all his habits were formed — it 
was something so new for him. And though the people are 
extremely nice, and so hospitable and kind, they were differ- 
ent from those he had been used to.” 

Oona smiled a little. She did not see her new acquaint- 
ance from the best side,^ and there came into her mind a 
slightly bitter and astonished reflection that Walter, per- 
haps, preferred people like this to — other people. It was an 
altogether incoherent thought. 

“ Does he know that you are here ? ” she said. 

“Oh, I don’t think he does — but he will soon find me 
out,” said Julia, with an answering smile. “He always 
tells me everything. We are such old friends, and perhaps 
something — more. To be sure that is not a thing to talk of : 
but there is something in your face which is so sweet, which 
invites confidence. With a little encouragement I believe I 
should tell you everything I ever did.” 

She leant over Oona as if she would have kissed her : but 
compliments so broad and easy disconcerted the Highland 
girl. She withdrew a little from this close contact. 

“The wind is getting cold,” she said. “Perhaps we 
ought to go in. My mother always blames me for keeping 
strangers, who are not used to it, in this chilly air.” 

“ Ah, you do not encourage me,” Julia said. And then 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


323 

after a pause added, with the look of one preoccupied with a 
subject — “ Is he there now ? ” 

“I think Lord Erradeen is still at Kinloch Houran, if 
that is what you mean. That is another house of his among 
the trees.” ■ 

“ How curious ! two houses so close together. If you see 
him,” said Julia, rising to join her cousin who had come out 
to the door of the cottage with Mrs. Forrester, “ if you see 
him, don’t, please don’t, tell him you have met me. I prefer 
that he should find it out. He is quite sure, oh, sooner than 
I w^ant him, to find me out.” 

And then the ladies were attended to the boat in the 
usual hospitable way. 

“You will get back before it is dark,” said Mrs. Forrester. 
“ I am always glad of that, for the wind is cold from the 
hills, especially to strangers who are not used to our High- 
land climate. I take your visit very kind. Lady Herbert. In 
these days I can do so little for my Mends— unless Sir 
Thomas would take his lunch with me some day, and that is 
no compliment to a gentleman that is out on the hills all his 
time, I have just no opportunity of showing attention. But 
if ye are going further north, my son, the present Mr. For- 
rester of Ea^escairn would be delighted to be of any ser- 
vice. He knows how little his mother can do for her friends, 
perched up here in the middle of the water and without a 
gentleman in the house. Hamish, have ye got the cushions 
in, and are ye all ready? You’ll be sure to take her lady- 
ship to where the carriage is waiting, and see that she has 
not a long way to walk.” 

Thus talking, the kind lady saw her visitors off, and 
stood on the beach waving her hand to them. The fur clcak 
had been transferred to her shoulders. It was the one wrap 
in which everybody believed, Oona, who moved so much 
more quickly, and had no need to pause to take breath, did 
not now require such careful wrapping. She too stood and 
waved her hand as the boat turned the corner of the isle. 
But her farewells were not so cordial as her mother’s. Julia’s 
talk had been very strange to Oona ; it filled her with a vague 
fear. Something very different from the sensation with 
which she had heard Katie’s confessions on the subject of 
Lord Erradeen moved her now. An impression of unworthi- 
ness had stolen into her mind, she could not tell how. It 
was the first time she had been sensible of any thought of 
the kind. Walter had not been revealed to her in any of the 
circumstances of his past life. She had known him only 
during his visit at Kinloch Houran, and when he was in pro- 
found difficulty and agitation, in which her presence and 
succor had helped him she could not tell how, and when his 
appeal to her, nis dependence on her, had seized hold of her 
mind and imagination with a force which it had taken her 


324 


THE WIZARD'S SOH, 


all this time to throw off, and which, alas ! his first ap- 
pearance and renewed appeal to her to stand by him had 
brought back again in spite of her resistance and against her 
will. She had been angry with herself and indignant at this 
involuntary subjugation— which he had not desired so far as 
she knew, nor she dreamt of, until she had fallen under it — 
and had recognized, with a sort of despair and angry sense 
of impotence, the renewal of this influence, which she seemed 
incapable of resisting. But Julia’s words roused in her a 
different sentiment. Julia’s laugh, the light insinuations of 
her tone, her claim of intimacy and previous knowledge, 
brought a revulsion of feeling so strong and powerful that 
she felt for the moment as if sme had been delivered from her 
bonds. Delivered— but not with any pleasure in being free : 
for the deliverance meant the lowering of the image of him 
in whom she had suddenly found that union of something 
above her with something below, which is the man’s chief 
charm to the woman, as probably it is the woman’s chief 
charm to the man. He had been below her, he had needed 
her help, she had brought to him some principle of complete- 
ness, some moral support which was indispensable, without 
which he could not have stood fast. But now another kind 
of inferiority was suggested to her, which was not that in 
which a visionary and absolute youthful mind could find any 
charm, which it was difficult even to tolerate, which was an 
offence to her and to the pure and overmastering sentiment 
which had drawn her to him. If he was so near to Miss 
Herbert, so entirely on her level, making her his confidant, 
he could be nothing to Oona. She seemed to herself to burst 
her bonds and stand free — but not happily. Her heart was 
not the lighter for it. She would have liKed to escape, yet to 
be able to bear him the same stainless regard, the same sym- 
jiathy as ever ; to help him still, to honor him in his resist- 
ance to all that was evil. All this happened on the afternoon 
of the day which Walter had begun with a despairing con- 
viction that Dona’s help must fail him when she Jcneic. She 
liad begun to know without any agency of his : and if it 
moved her so to become aware of a frivolous and foolish con- 
nection in which there was levity and vanity, and a fictitious 
counterfeit of higher sentiments but no harm, what would 
her feelings be when all the truth was unfolded to her ? But 
neither did she know of the darker depths that lay below, 
nor was he aware of the revelation which had begun. Oona 
returned to the house with her mother’s soft-voiced mono- 
logue in her ears, hearing vaguely a great many particulars 
of Lady Herbert’s family and connections and of her being 
“really an acquisition, and Sir Thomas just an honest 
English sort of man, and Miss Herbert very pretty, and a 
nice companion for you, Oona,” without reply, or with much 


THE WIZAEHS SON. 


325 


consciousness of what it was. “ It is time you were indoors, 
mamma, for the wind is very cold,” she said. 

“ Oh yes, Oona, it is' very well for you to speak about me ; 
but you must take your own advice and come in too. For 
you nave nothing about your shoulders, and I have got the 
fur cloak.” 

“ I am coming mother,” Oona said, and with these words 
turned from the door and going to the rocky parapet that 
bordered the little platform, cast an indignant glance 
tow^ards the ruined walls so far beneath her on the water’s 
edge, dark and cold, out of the reach of all those autumn 
glories that were fading in the sky. There was no light or 
sign of life about Kinloch Hour an. She had looked out 
angrily, as one defrauded of much honest feeling had she 
felt, a right to do ; but something softened her as she looked 
and gazed — the darkness of it, the pathos of the ruin, the in- 
completeness, and voiceless yet appealing need. Was it pos- 
sible that there was no need at all or vacancy there but 
what Miss Herbert, with her smiles and dimples, her laugh- 
ing insinufltions, her claim upon him from the past, and the 
first preference of youth, could supply? Oona felt a great 
sadness take the place of her indignation as she turned away. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 


This was not the only danger that once more over- 
shadowed the path of Lord Erradeen. Underwood had been 
left alone in one of those foreign centres of “ pleasure ” so 
called, whither he had led his so often impatient and unruly 
pupil. He had been left, without notice, by a sudden im- 
pulse, such as he was now sufiQciently acquainted with in 
Walter— who had always the air of obeying angrily and 
against his will the temptations with which he was sur- 
rounded : a sort of moral indignation against himself and 
all that aided in his degradation curiously mingling with the 
follies and vices into which he was led. You never knew 
when you had him, was Captain Underwood’s own descrip- 
tion. ‘He would dart aside at a tangent, go off at the most 
unlikely moment, dash down the cup when it was at the 
sweetest, and abandon with disgust the things that had 
seemed to please him most. And Underwood knew that the 
moment was coming when his patron and protege must re- 
turn home : but notwithstanding he was left, without warn- 
ing, as by a sudden caprice ; the young man who scorned 
while he yielded to his influence, having neither respect nor 
regard enough for his companion to leave a word of explana- 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


326 

tion. Underwood was astonished and angry as a matter of 
course, but his anger soon subsided, and his sense of Lord 
Erradeen’s importance to him was too strong to^ leave room 
for lasting resentment, or at least for anything in the shape 
of relinquishment. He was not at all disposed to give the 
young victim up. Already he had tasted many of what to 
him were the sweets of life by Walter’s means, and there 
were endless caiiabilities in Lord Erradeen’s fortune and in 
his unsettled mind, which made a companion like Under- 
wood, too wise ever to take offence, necessary to him— which 
that worthy would not let slip. After the shock of finding 
himself deserted, he took two or three days to consider the 
matter, and then he made his plan. It was bold, yet he 
thought not too bold. He followed in the very track of his 
young patron, passing through Edinburgh and reaching 
Auchnasheen on the same momentous day which had wit- 
nessed Julia Herbert’s visit to the isle. Captain Underwood 
Avas very well known at Auchnasheen. He had filled in 
many ways the position of mianager and steward to the last 
lord. He had not been loved, but yet he had not been 
actively disliked. If there vvas some surprise and a little 
resistance on the part of the household there was at least no 
open revolt. They received him coldly, and required con- 
siderable explanation of the many things which he requii'ed 
to be done. They w^ere all aware, as well as he was, that 
Lord Erradeen was to be expected from day to day, and 
they had made such preparations for his arrival as sugges- 
ted themselves : but these were not many, and did not at all 
please the zealous ckptain. His affairs, he felt, w ere at a 
critical point. It was very necessary that the young man 
should feel the pleasure of being (expected, the surprise of 
finding everything arranged according to his tastes. 

‘'. You know very well that he will come here exhausted, 
that he will w^ant to have everything comfortable,” he said 
to the housekeeper and the servants. “No one wnuld like 
after a fatiguing journey to come into a bare sort of a miser- 
able place like this.” 

“ My lord is not so hard to please,” said the housekeeper, 
standing her ground. “Last year he just took no notice. 
Whatever was done he was not heeding.” 

“ Because he Avas unused to everything : noAV it is differ- 
ent ; and I mean to have things comfortable for him.” 

“ Well, captain ! I am sure it’s none of my wish to keep 
the poor young gentleman from his bits of little comforts. 
YVll have to authority?” 

“ Oh, yes, I have his*^authority. It will be for your advan- 
tage to mind Avhat I tell you ; even more than Avith 
the late lord. I’ve been abroad with him. He left me but 
a short time ago ; I was to folloAV him and look after every- 
thing.” 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 327 

At this the housekeeper looked at the under-factor, Mr. 
Shaw’s subordinate, who had come to intimate to her her 
master’s return. “ Will that be all right, Mr. Adamson?” 
Adamson put his shaggy head on one side like an intelli- 
gent dog and looked at the stranger. But they all knew 
Captain Underwood well enough, and no one was courageous 
enough to contradict him. 

“ It will, maybe, be as ye say,” said the under-factor cau- 
tiously. “ Anyway it will do us no harm to take his orders,” 
he added, in an undertone to the woman. “ He was always 
very far ben for the old lord.” 

‘‘ The worse for him,” said that important functionary un- 
der her breath. But she agreed with Adamson afterwards 
that as long as it was my lord’s comfort he was looking after 
and not his own, his orders should be obeyed. As with every 
such person, the household distrusted this confidant -and un- 
paid major domo. But Underwood had not been tyrannical 
in his previous reign, and young Lord Erradeen during his 
last residence at Auchnasbeen had frightened them all. He 
had been like a man beside himself. If the captain could 
manage him better, they would be grateful to the captain ; 
and thus Underwood, though by no means confident of a 
good reception, had no serious hindrances to encounter. He 
strolled forth when he had arranged everything to “ look 
about him.” He saw the Birkenbraes boat pass in the even- 
ing light, returning from the castle, with a surprise which 
took away his breath. The boat was near enough to the 
shore as it passed to be recognized and its occupants ; but 
not even Katie whose eyesight was so keen, recognized the 
observer on the beach. He remarked that the party were in 
earnest conversation, consulting with each other over some- 
thing which seemed to secure everybody’s attention, so that 
the ordinary quick notice of a stranger, which is common to 
country-people, was not called forth by his own appearance. 
It surprised him mightily to see that such visitors had ven- 
tured to Kinloch Houran. They never would have done so 
in the time of the last lord. Had Walter all at once become 
more friendly^ more open-hearted, perhaps feeling in the com- 
pany of his neighbors a certain safety? Undprwood was 
confounded by this new suggestion. It did not please him. 
Kothing could be worse for himself than that Lord Erradeen 
should find amusement in the society of the neighborhood. 
There would be no more riot if this was the case, no “ pleas- 
ure,” no play ; but perhaps a wife— most terrible of all anti- 
cipations. Underwood had been deeply alarmed before by 
Katie Williamson’s asceijdency ; but when Lord Erradeen 
returned to his own influence, he had believed that risk to be 
over. If, however, it recurred again, and, in this moment 
. while undefended by his, Underwood’s protection, if the 
young fellow had rushed into the snare once more, the cap- 


THE WIZARHS SON, 


328 

tain felt that the incident would acquire new significance. 
He felt even that something of the kind must be the case, 
or that the Birkenbraes party would never have been so 
bold as to break into the very sanctuary, into the fated i)re- 
cincts of Kinloch Houran. This thought brought the moist- 
ure suddenly to his forehead. There were women whom he 
might have tolerated if better could not be. Julia Herbert 
was one whom he could perhaps — it was possible— have “ got 
on with,” though possibly she would have changed after her , 
marriage ; but with Katie, Underwood knew that he never 
would get on. If this were so he would have at once to dis- 
appear. All his hopes would be over — his prospect of gain 
or pleasure by means of Lord Erradeen. And he had “ nad 
put with ” so much ! nobody knew how much he had put up 
with. He had humored the young fellow, and endured his 
fits of temper, his changes of purpose, his fantastic inconsis- 
tencies of every kind. What friendship it was on his part, 
after Erradeen had deserted him, left him planted there— as 
if he cared for the d — — place where he had gone only to 
please the young ’un ! thus to put all his grievances in his 
pocket and hurry over land and sea to make sure that all was 
comfortable for the ungrateful young man ! That was true 
friendship, by Jove : vdiat a man would do for a man ! not 
like a woman that always had to be waited upon. Captain 
Underwood felt that his vested rights were being assailed, 
and that if it came to this it would be a thing to be resisted 
with might and main. A wife ! what did Erradeen want 
with a wife ? Surely it would be possible to put before him 
the charms of liberty once more and prevent the sacrifice. 
He walked along the side of the loch almost keeping up with 
the boat, hot with righteous indignation, in spite of the cold 
wind which had driven Mrs. Forrester into the house. Pres- 
ently he heard the sound of salutations on the water, of oars 
clanking upon row-locks from a different quarter, and saw 
the boat from the isle— Hamish rowing in his red shirt— meet 
with the large iron-oared boat from Birkenbraes and pause 
while the women’s voices exchanged a few sentences, chor- 
used by Mr. Williamson’s bass. Then the smaller boat came 
on towards the shore, towards the point near which a car- 
riage was waiting. Cai^tain Underwood quickened his steps 
a little, and he it was who presented himself to Julia Her- 
bert’s eyes as she approached the bit of rocky beach, and hur- 
rying down, offered his hand to help her. 

“What a strange meeting ! ” cried Julia ; “ what a small 
world, as everybody says ! WTio could have thought. Cap- 
tain Underwood, of seeing you here?” 

“ I might reply, if the surprise were not so delightful, 
who could have thought. Miss Herbert, of seeing you here? 
for myself it is a second home to me, and has been for years.’’ 

“ My reason for being here is simple. Let me introduce 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


329 

you to my cousin, Lady Herbert. Sir Thomas has got the 
shootings lower down. I suppose you are with Lord Erra- 
cleen. 

Lady Herbert had given the captain a very distant bow. 
She did not like the looks of him, as indeed has been stated 
no ladies did, whether in Sloebury or elsewhere; but at 
tae n*cune 01 Erradeen she paid a more polite attention, 
though the thought of her horses waiting so long in the cold 
w as already grievous to her. “ I hope,” she said, “ that Lord 
Erradeen does not lodge his friends in that old ruin, as he 
uoes himself, people say.” 

‘‘We a-re at Auchnasheen, a house you may see among the 
trees,' said the cajjtain. “ Feudal remains are captivating, 
but not to live in. Hoes our friend Walter know. Miss Her- 
bert, what happiness awaits him in your presence here ? ” 

“ What a pretty sjeech,” Julia cried far prettier than 
anytmng Walter could muster courage to say. No, Captain 
Underw^ood, he does not. It v/as all settled quite suddenly. 
I did not even know that he w^as here.” 

“ Julia, the horses have been 'waiting a long time,” said 
Lady Herbert. ^ “1 have no doubt Lord Eiradeen is a very 
interesting subject — but I don’t know 'w hat Barber (wdio w^as 
the coachman) will say. I shall be glad to see your friends 
any day at luncheon. Tell Lord Erradeen, please. We are 
two women alone, Sir Thomas is on the hills all day ; all the 
more w^e shall be glad to see him— I mean you both— if you 
will take pity on our loneliness. Now, Julia, we really must 
not wait any longer.” 

“Tell Walter I shall look for him,” said Julia, kissing 
her hand as they drove aw’ay. L^nderv/ood stood and looked 
after the carriage wdth varied emotions. As against Katie 
TFilliamson, he was'overjoyed to have such an auxiliary— a 
girl who would not stand upon any punctilio— who would 
pursue her object wdth an;^^ assistance she could pickup, and 
w^ould not be above an alliance defensive or offensive, a girl 
who knew the advantage of an influential friend. 80 far as 
that w^ent he was glad ; but, heavens ! what a neighborhood, 
bristling with women ; a girl at every corner ready to decoy 
Ills i>rey out of his hands. He was rueful, even though he 
v.'as in a measure satisfied. If he could play his cards suffi- 
ciently well to detach Walter from both one and the other, 
to show the bondage which was veiled under Julia’s smiles 
and comnlacency, as well as under Katie’s uncompromismg 
code, and to carry him off under their very eyes, that would 
indeed be a triumph ; but failing that, it was better for him 
to make an ally of Julia, and push her cause, than to suffer 
himself to be dusted by the other, the little parvenue, with 
her cool impertinence, who had been the first, he thought, 
to set Walter against him. 

He walked back to Auchnasheen, full of these thoughts. 


330 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


and of plans to recover his old ascendency. He had ex- 
pedients for doing this which would not bear recording, and 
a hundred hopes of awakening the passions, the jealousies, 
the vanity of the young man whom already he had been able 
to sway beyond his expectations. He believed that he had 
led Walter by the nose, as he said, and had a mastery over 
him which would be easily recovered if he but got him for a 
day or two to himself. It was a matter of fact that he had 
done him much, if not fatal harm ; and if the captain had : 
been clever enough to know that he had no mastery what- 
ever over his victim, and that Walter was the slave of his 
own shifting and uneasy moods, of his indolences and sudden 
impulses, and impatient abandonment of himself to the mo- 
ment, but not of Captain Underwood, that tempter might 
have done him still more harm. But he did not possess this 
finer perception, and thus lost a portion of his power. 

He went back to Auchnasheen to find a comfortable din- 
ner, a good fire, a cheerful room, full of light and comfort, 
which reminded him of “ old days,” which he gave a regret- 
ful yet comfortable thought to in passing — the time when he 
had waited, not knowing what moment the old lord, his 
former patron, should return from Kinloch Houran. And 
now he was waiting for the other— who was so unlike the 
old lord— and yet had already been of more use to Under- 
wood, and served him better in his own way, than the old 
lord had ever done. He was somewhat attendri., even per- 
haps a little maudlin in his thoughts of Walter as he sat 
over that comfortable fire. What was he about, poor boy ? 
Not so comfortable as his triend and retainer, drinking his 
wine and thinking of him. But he should find some one to 
welcome him when he returned. He should find a comfort- 
able meal and good company, which was more than the 
foolish tellow would expect. It was foolish of him, in his 
temper, to dart away from those who really cared for him, 
who could really be of use to him: but by this time the 
young lord would be too glad, after his loneliness, to come 
back and find a faithful friend ready to make allowances for 
him, and so well acquainted with his circumstances here. 

So well acquainted with his circumstances ! Underwood, 
in his time, had no doubt wondered over these as much as 
any one ; but that was long ago, and he had, in the mean- 
time. become quite familiar with them, and did not any 
longer speculate on the subject. He had no supernatural 
curiosity for his part. He could understand that one would 
not like to see a ghost ; and he believed in ghosts— in a fine, 
healthy vulgar, natural apparition, with dragging chains 
and hollow groans. But as for anything else, he had never 
entered into the question, nor had he any thought of doing 
so now. However, as he sat by the fire with all these coni- 
tortable accessories round him, and listened now and then 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


33 1 


to hear if any one was coming, and sometimes was deceived 
by the wind in the chimneys, or the soimd of the trees in 
the fresh breeze wliich had become keener and sharper since 
he came indoor Sj it- happened, how he could not tell, that 
questions arose in the captain’s mind such as he had never 
Iniown before. 

The house was very still, the servants’ apartments were 
at a considerable distance from the sitting-rooms, and all 
was quiet. Two or three times in the course of the evening 
old Symington, who had also come to see that everything 
was in order for his master, walked all the way from these 
retired regions through a long passage running from one 
end of the house to the other, to the great door, which he 
opened cautiously, then shut again, finding nobody in sight, 
and retired the same way as he came, his shoes creaking all 
the way. This interruption occurring at intervals had a 
remarkable effect upon Underwood. He began to wait for 
its recurrence, to count the steps, to feel a thrill of alarm as . 
they passed the door of the room in which he was sitting. 
Oh, yes, no doubt it was Symington, who always wore creak- 
ing shoes, confound him ! But what if it were not Syming- 
ton ? What if it might be some one else, some mysterious 
being who might suddenly open the door, and freeze into 
stone the warm, palpitating, somewhat unsteady person of a 
man who had eaten a very good dinner and drunk a con- 
siderable quantity of Avine ? This thought so penetrated his 
mind, that gradually all his thoughts were concentrated on 
the old servant’s perambulation, watching for it before it 
came, thinking of it after it had passed. The steady and 
solemn march at intervals, wliich seemed calculated and 
regular, ivas enough to haA^e impressed the imagination of 
any solitary person. And the captain was of a primitive 
simplicity of mind in some respects. His fears paralyzed 
him ; he Avas afraid to get up, to open the door, to make sure 
what it was. How could he tell that he might not be seized- 
by the hair of the head by some ghastly apparition, and 
dragged into a chamber of horrors ! He tried to fortify him- 
self with more wine, but that only made his tremor Avorse. 
Finally the panic came to a crisis, when Symington, pausing, 
knocked at the library door. UnderAvood remembered to 
have heard that no spirit could enter Avithout invitation, and 
he shut his mouth firmly that no habitual “ come m ” might 
lay him open to the assault of the enemy. He sat breathless 
through the ensuing moment of suspense, while Symington 
waited outside. The captain’s hair stood up on his head: 
his face Avas covered with a profuse dew; he held by the 
table in an agony of apprehension when he saw the door 
begin to turn sloAvly upon its hinges. . 

“ My lord will not be home the night,” said Symington, 
sloAvly. 


33 “ 


THE IVIZAA'D'S SOH 


The sight of the old servant scarcely quieted the pertur- 
bation of Underwood. It had been a terrible day for Sym- 
ington. He was ashy pale or gray, as old men become when 
the blood is driven from their faces. Ho had not been able 
to get rid of the scared and terror-stricken sensation with 
which he had watched the Birkenbraes party climbing the 
old stairs, and wandering as he thought at the peril of their 
lives upon the misafe battlements. He had been almost 
violentln his calls to them to come down ; but nobody had 
taken any notice, and they had talked about their ^lide and 
about the gentleman who was living with Lord Erradeen, 
till it seemed to Symington that he must go distracted. 
“ Were there ever such fools — such idiots ! since there is no- 
bociy staying with Lord Erradeen but me, his body servant,” 
the old man had said tremulously to himself. At Syming- 
ton’s voice the captain gave a start and a cry. Even in the 
relief of discovering who it was, he could not quiet the ex- 
citement of his nerves. 

“ It’s you, old Truepenny,” he cried, yet looked at him 
across the table with a tremor, and a very forced and un- 
comfortable smile. 

“ That’s not my name,” said Symington, with, on his side, 
the irritation of a disturbed mind. “ I’m saying that it’s get- 
ting late, and my lord will no be home to-night.” 

‘‘By Jove!” cried. Captain Underwood, when I heard 
you passing from one end of the house to the other, I thouglit 
it might be— the old fellow over there, coming himself ” 

“ I cannot tell, sir, what you are meaning by the old fel- 
low over there,. There’s no old fellow I know of but old 
Macalister ; and it was not for him you took me.” 

“■ If you could have heard how yoiir steps sounded through 
the house ! By Jove ! I could fancy I hear them now.” 

“ Where?” Symington cried, coming in and shutting the 
door, which he held with his hand behind him, as if to bar all 
possible comers. And then the two men looked at each other, 
both breathless and pale. 

“ Sit down,” said Underwood. “ The house feels chilly 
and dreary, nobody living in it for so long. Have a glass of 
wine. One wants company in a damp, dreary old hole like 
this.” 

“You are very kind, captain,” said the old man: “but 
Auchnasheen, though only iny lord’s shooting-box, is a 
modern mansion, and full of every convenience. It would 
ill become me to raise an ill name on it.” 

“ I wonder w^hat Erradeen’ s about,” said the captain. “I 
bet he’s worse off than we are. How he must wish he was 
off with me on the other side of the Channel.” 

“Captain! you will, maybe, think little of me, being 
nothing but a servant ; but it is little good you do my young 
lord on the other side of the Channel.^^ 


7'RE WIZARD^S SON. 


333 


Underwood laughed, but not with his usual vigor. 

“ Wliat can I do with your young lord?” he said. “He 
takes the bit in his teeth, and goes— to the devil his own 
way.” 

“ Captain, there are some that think the like of you sore 
to blame.” 

Underwood said nothing for a moment. When he spoke 
there was a quiver in his voice. 

“ Let me see the way to my room, Symington. Oh yes, I 
suppose it is the old room ; but I’ve forgotten. I was there 
before ? well, so I suppose ; but I have forgotten. Take the 
candle as I tell you, and show me the way.” 

He had not the least idea what he feared, and he did not 
remember ever having feared anything before ; but to-night 
he clung close to Symington, following at his very heels. The 
old man was anxious and alarmed, but not in this ignoble 
way. lie deposited the captain in his room with composure, 
who would but for very shame have implored him to stay. 
And then his footsteps sounded through the vacant house, 
going further and further off till they died away in the dis- 
tance. Captain Underwood locked his door, though he felt 
it was a vain precaution, and hastened to hide his head un- 
der the bedclothes ; but he was well aware that this was a 
vain precaution too. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

It was on the evening of the day after Captain Under- 
wood’s arrival that Lord Erradeen left Kinloch Houran for 
Auchnasheen. After labor, rest. He could not but compare 
as he walked along in the early falling autumnal twilight 
the difference between himself now, and the same self a 
year ago, when he had fled from the place of torture to the 
house of peace, a man nearly frantic with the consciousness 
of all the new bonds upon him, the uncomprehending powers 
against which he had to struggle, the sense of panic and im- 

K otence, yet of mad excitement and resistance with which 
is brain was on flame. The recollection of the ensuing 
time spent at Auchnasheen, when he saw no one, heard no 
voice but his own, yet lived through day after day of beml- 
dering mental conflict, without knowing who it was against 
whom he contended, was burned in upon his recollection. 
All through that time he had been conscious of such a de- 
sire to flee as hurried the pace of his thoughts, and made the 
intolerable still more intolerable. His heart had sickened of 
the unbearable fight into which he was compelled like an un- 
willing soldier with death behind him. To resist had always 
been Walter’s natural impulse ; but the impulse of flight had 


334 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


SO mingled with it that his soul had been in a fever, count- 
ing no passage of days, but feeling the whole period long or 
short, he did not know which, as one monstrous uninter- 
rupted day or night, in which the processes of thought were 
never intermitted. His mind v/as in a very different condi- 
tion now. He had got over the early panic of nature. The 
blinding mists of terror had melted away from his eyes, and 
the novelty and horror of his position, contending with un- 
seen dominations and powers, had been so much softened by 
custom and familiarity that he now scarcely felt its pecu- 
liarity at all, except in a certain sense of contempt, and that 
subtle consciousness of superiority which the more enlight- 
ened in every sphere can with difficulty subdue, towards 
those who felt, as he had once felt, panic-stricken, and over- 
whelmed with natural fear. His contempt for the two old 
servants of the house, who recognized with a tremor of all 
their senses the presence of some one wdiom they could not 
see, had a certain compassion and kindness mingled with it ; 
but it would be difficult to describe the sensation of profound 
distance and difference between himself, informecl and en- 
lightened as he now was, and those curious and Avondering 
spectators who saw his visitor, and croAvded round to gaze 
at him, yet had nothing but a faint thrill of alarm in them to 
indicate Avho and Avhat he Avas. That strange visitor smiled, 
Avith an almost humorous recognition of this obtuseness, 
but W alter felt a certain anger with the fools Avho had no 
clearer perception. All this, IroAveA^er, Avas over now, and he 
Avalked round the head of the loch toAvards Auchnasheen 
Avith a conscious pause of all sensation Avhich Avas due to the 
exhaustion of his mind. The loch Avas veiled in mist, through 
Avhich it glimmered faintly Avdth broken reflections, the 
Avooded banks presenting on every side a sort of ghostly out- 
line, Avith the color no more than indicated against the 
dreary confusion of air and vapor. At some points there 
was the glimpse of a blurred light, looking larger and more 
distant than it really was, the ruddy spot made by the open 
door of the little inn, the Avhiter and smaller twinkle of the 
manse window, the far-off point, looking no more than a 
taper light in the distance, that shone from the isle. There 
Avas in W alter’s mind a darkness and confusion notunlike 
the landscape. He was Avorn out ; there Avas in him none of 
that vmd feeling which had separated between his human 
soul in its despair and the keen SAveetness of the morning. 
Now all Avas night Avithin him and around. His arms had 
fallen from his hands. He moA^ed along, scarcely aware that 
he Avas moAung, feeling everything blurred, confused, in- 
distinct in the earth about him and in the secret places of 
his soul. Desire for flight he had none ; he had come to see 
that it was impossible ; and he had not energy enough to 
Avish it. And fear had died out of him. He Avas not afraid. 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


335 


Had he been joined on the darkling way by the personage of 
whom he had of late seen so much, it would scarcely have 
quickened his pulses. All such superficial emotion had died 
out of him ; the real question was so much superior, so in- 
finitely important in comparison with any such transitory 
tremors as these. But at the present moment he was not 
thinking at all, scarcely living, any more than the world 
around him was living, hushed into a cessation of all 
energy, and almost of consciousness, looking forward to 
night and darkness and repose. 

It was somewhat surprising to hiih to see the lighted win- 
dows at Auchnasheen, and the air of inhabitation about the 
house with which he had no agreeable associations, but only 
those which are apt to hang about a place in which one has 
gone through a fever, full of miserable visions, and the burn- 
ing restlessness of disease. But when he stepped into the 
hall, the door being opened to him by Symington as soon as 
his foot was heard on the gravel, and turning round to go 
into the library after taking olf his coat, found himself sud- 
denly in the presence of Captain Underwood, his astonish- 
ment and dismay were beyond expression. The dismay came 
even before the flush of anger, which was the first emotion 
that showed itself. UnderAvood stood holding open the 
library door, with a smile that was meant to be ingratiating 
and conciliatory. He held out his hand, as Walter, Avith a 
start and exclamation, recognized him, 

“Yes,” he said, “I’m here, you see. Not so easy to get 
rid of Avhen once I form a friendship. W elcome to your own 
house, Erradeen.” 

Walter did not say anything till he had entered the room 
and shut the door. He walked to the fire, which Avas blaz- 
ing brightly, and placed himself with his back to it, in that 
attitude in Avhich the master of a house defies all comers. 

“ I did not expect to find you here,” he said, “ You take 
me entirely by surprise.” 

“ I had hoped it Avould be an agreeable surprise,” said the 
captain, still AAuth his most amiable smile. “ I thought to 
have a friend’s face Avaiting for you when you came back 
from that confounded place Avould be a relief,” 

“What do you call a confounded place?” said Walter, 
testily. “ You knoAv nothing about it, as far as I am aAvare. 
No, Underwood, it is as well to speak plainly. It is not an 
agreeable surprise. I am sorry you have taken the trouble 
to come so far for me.” 

“ It Avas no trouble. If you are a little out of sorts, never 
mind. I am not a man to be discouraged for a hasty Avord. 
You Avant a little cheerful society 

“Is that Avhat you call yourself?” Walter said with a 
harsh laugh. He was aware that there was a certain brutal- 
ity in what he said ; but the sudden sight of the man who 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


336 

had disgustedjiim even while he had most influenced him. 
and of whom he had never thought but with a movement of 
resentment and secret rage, affected him to a sort of deli- 
rium. He could have seized him with the force of passion 
and flung him into the loch at the door. It would have been 
nc crime, he thought, to destroy such vermin off the face of 
the earth— to make an end of such a source of evil would be 
no crime. This was the thought in his mind while he stood 
u[)on his own hearth, looking at the man who was his guest 
iind therefore sacred. As for Captain Underwood, he took 
no offence : it was not in his role to do so, whatever hap- 
pened. What he had to do was to regain, if possible, his 
position with the young man upon whom he had lived and 
enriched himself for the greater part of the year, to render 
himself indispensable to him as he had done to his prede- 
cessor, For this object he was prepared to bear everything, 
and laugh at all that was too strong to be ignored. lie 
laughed now, and did his best, not very gracefully, to carry 
out the joke. He exerted himself to talk and please through- 
out the dinner, which Walter went through in ' silence, 
drinking largely, though scarcely eating at all— for Kinloch 
Houran was not a place which encouraged an appetite. 
After dinner, in the midst of one of Underwood’s stories, 
AValter lighted a candle abruptly, and, saying he was going 
to bed, left his companion without apologizing or reason 
given. It was impossible to be more rude. The captain felt 
the check, for he Had a considerable development of vanity, 
and was in the habit of amusing the people whom he chose 
to make himself agreeable to. But this affront, too, he 
swallowed. “ He will have come to himself by morning,” he 
said. In the morning, however, Walter was only more 
gloomy and unwilling to listen, and determined not to re- 
spond. It was. only when in the middle of the breakfast he 
received a note brought by a mounted messenger who waited 
for an answer, that he spoke. He flung it open across the 
table to Underwood with a harsh laugh. 

“Is this your doing, too ? ” he cried. 

“ My doing, Erradeen ! ” 

Underwood knew very well what it was before he looked 
at it. It was from Lady Herbert, explaining that she had 
only just heard that Lord Erradeen was so near a neighbor, 
and begging him, if he was not, like all the other gentlemen, 
on the hills, that he would come (“ and your friend Captain 
Underwood ”) to luncheon that day to cheer two forlorn 
ladies left all by themselves in this wilderness. “ And you 
will nieet an old friend,” it concluded playfully. The com- 
position was Julia’s, and had not been produced without 
careful study. 

“My doing ! ” said Captain Underwood. “ Can you sup- 
pose that I want you to many, Erradeen ? ” 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


337 


It was a case, he thought, in which truth was best. 

Walter started up from his seat. 

“ Marry ! ” he cried, with a half shout of rage and dismay. 

“ Well, my dear fellow, I don’t suppose you are such a 
fool; but, of course, that is what she means. The fair 
Julia 

“Oblige me,” cried Lord Erradeen, taking up once more 
his position on the hearth, “ by speaking civilly when you 
speak of ladies in my house.” 

“ Why, bless me, Erradeen, you gave me the note — — ” 

“ I was a fool — that is nothing new. I have been a fool 
since the first day when I met you and took you for some- 
thing more than mortal. Oh, and before that !” cried Wal- 
ter bitterly. “ Do not flatter yourself that you did it. It is 
of older date than you.” 

“The fair Julia ” Underwood began ; but he stopped 

when his companion advanced upon him threatening, with 
so gloomy a look and so tightly strained an arm that the 
captain judged it wise to change his tone. “ I should have 
said, since we are on punctilio, that Miss Herbert and you 
are older acquaintances than you and I, Erradeen.” 

“ Fortunately you have nothing to do with that,” Walter 
said, perceiving the absurdity of his rage. 

Then he walked to the window and looked out so long 
and silently that the anxious watcher began to think the 
incident over. But it was not till Walter, after this period 
of reflection, had written a note and sent it to the messenger, 
that he ventured to speak. 

“You have accepted, of course. In the circumstances it 
would be uncivil ” 

Walter looked at him for a moment, breaking off his sen- 
tence as if he had spoken. 

“ I have something to tell you,” he said. “ My mother is 
coming to Auchnasheen.” 

“ Your mother ! ” Underwood’s voice ran into a quiver 
of dismay. 

“ You will see that in the circumstances, as you say, I am 
forced to be uncivil. When my mother is here, she vdll, of 
course, be the mistress of the house; and she, as you 
know ” 

“ Will not ask me to prolong my visit,” said the cap- 
tain, with an attempt at rueful humor. “ I think we may 
say as much as that, Erradeen.” 

“ I fear it is not likely,” Walter said. 

Captain Underwood gave vent to his feelings in a pro- 
longed Avhistle. 

“You will be bored to death. Mark my words, I know 
you well enough. You will never be able to put up with it. 
You will be readv to hang yourself in a week. You will 
come ofl to me. It is the best thing that could happen so 


THE WIZARD'S SOH. 


33S 

far as I am concerned— wishing to preserve your friendship 
as I do ” 

“is it friendship, then, that has bound us together ?” said 
Lord Erradeen. 

“What else? Disinterested friendship on my part. I 
take your laugh rather ill, Erradeen.. What have I gained 
by it, I should like to know ? I’ve liked you, and I liked tbe 
last man before you. I have put up with a great deal from 
you— tempers like a silly woman, vagaries of all sortSj dis- 
content and abuse. Why have 1 put up with all that?'’ 

“ Why indeed ? I wish you had not,” said the young man 
scornfully. “ Yes, you have put up with it, and made your 
pupil think the worse of you with every fresh exercise of pa- 
tience. I should like to i)ay you for all that dirty work.” 

“ Pay me ! ” the captain said, faltering a little. He was 
not a very brave man, though he could hold his own ; and 
there was a force of passion and youth in his “ pupil ” — with 
what bitterness that v'ord was said !— that alanned him a 
little. Besides, Walter had a household of servants behind 
him — grooms, keepers, all sorts of people— who held Captain 
Underwood in no favor. “ Pay me ! I don’t know how you 
could pay me,” he said. 

“I should like to do it — in one way; and I shall do it — 
in another,” said Walter still somewhat fiercely. Then onee 
more he laughed. He took out a pocket-book from his coat, 
and out of that a cheque. “ You have been at some expense 
on my account,” he said ; “ your journey has been long and 
rapid. I consider myself your debtor for that, and for the 
good intention. Will this be enough? ” 

In the bitter force of his ridicule and dislike, Walter held 
out the piece of paper as one holds a sweetmeat to a child. 
The other gave a succession of rapid glances at it to make 
out what it was. When he succeeded in doing so a flush of 
excitement and eagerness covered his face. He put out his 
hand nervously to clutch it with the excited look of the 
child before whom a prize is held out, and who catches at it 
before it is snatched away. But he would not acknowledge 
this feeling. 

“ My lord,” he said, with an appearance of dignity offend- 
ed, “ you are generous ; but to pay me, as you say, and offer 
money in place of your friendshi-^ ” 

“ It is an excellent exchange, Underwood. This is worth 
something, if not very much— the other,” said Walter with a 
laugh, “nothing at all.” 

Perhaps this was something like what Captain Under- 
wood himself thought, as he found himself, a few hours 
later, driving along the country-roads towards the railway 
station, retracing the path which he had travelled two days 
before with many hopes and yet a tremor. His hopes were 
now over, and the tremor tod ; but there was -something in 


TBE WIZARDS SON. 


339 

his breas1>pocket better, for the moment at least, than any 
hopes, which kept him warm, even thoug’h the wind was 
cold. He had failed in his attempt to fix himself once more 
permanently on Lord JErradeen’s shoulders— an attempt in 
which he had not been very sanguine. It was a desperate 
venture, he knew, and it had failed ; but, at the same time 
circumstances might arise which would justify another at- 
tempt, and that one might not fail ; and, in the meantime, 
his heart rose with a certain elation when he thought oi 
that signature in his breast-pocket. That was worth an ef- 
fort. and nothing could diminish its value. Friendship 
might fail, but a cheque is substantial. He had something 
of the dizzy feeling of one who has fallen from a great height 
and has not yet got the giddiness of the movement out of 
his head. And yet he was not altogether discouraged. 
Who could tell what turn the wheel of fortune might take ? 
and, in the meantime, there was that bit of paper. The horse 
was fresh, and fiew along the road, up and down, at a pace 
very different from that of Big John’s steeds, which had 
brought Captain Underwood to Auchnasheen. About half 
way along he came up to the waggonette from Birkenbraes, 
in which was Mr. Braithwaite and his luggage, along with 
two other guests, ladies, bound for the station, and escorted 
by Mr. Williamson and Katie, as was their way. 

“Dear me, is that Underwood?” cried Mr. Williamson 
with the lively and simple curiosity of rural use and wont. 
“ So you’re there, captain,” he said, as the dog-cart came up 
behind the heavier carriage. 

“ Ko. I’m not here— I’m going,” said Underwood quickly, 
“hurrying to catch the train.” 

Oh, there is plenty of time : we are going to. (Bless 
me,” he said aside, “ how many visitors think you they can 
have had in yon old place ?) I am thinking ye have , been 
with our young neighbor. Lord Erradeen.” 

“ That is an easy guess. I am leaving him you mean. 
Erradeen is a reformed character. He is turning over a new 
leaf— and full time too,” Captain Underwood cried, raising his 
voice that he might be heard over the rattle of the two car- 
riages. Notwithstanding the cheque which kept him so 
warm, he had various grudges against Walter, and did not< 
choose to lose the opportunity for a little mischief. 

“It is always a good thing,” said Mr. W illiamson “ to 
turn over a new leaf. We have all great occasion to do that.” 

“ Especially when there are so many of them,” the cap- 
tain cried, as his light cart passed the other. He met the 
party again at the station, where they had to wait for the 
train. Katie stood by herself in a thoughtful mood while 
the departing guests consulted over their several boxes, and 
Captain Underwood seized the moment : “ I am sorry to lose 
the fun,” he said, in a confidential tone, “ but I must tell you 


340 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


Miss Williamson, what is going to happen. Erradeen has 
been pursued up here in his stronghold by one of the many 
ladies 1 expect to hear she has clutched hold of him be- 

fore long, and then you’ll have a wedding.” 

“Is that why you are going away, Captain Underwood?” 

“ He has gone a little too far, you know, that is the truth,” 
said the captain. “ I am glad he is not going to take in any 
nice girl. 1 couldn’t have stood by and seen that. I should, 
have had to warn her people. Even Miss Julia, by Jove ! 
I’m sorry for Miss Julia, if she gets him. But she is an old 
campaigner ; she will know how to take care of herself.” 

“ Is it because Lord Erradeen is so bad that you are leav- 
ing him, or because he is going to be good? ” Katie asked. 
Captain Underwood on ordinary occasions was a little afraid 
of her: but his virtuous object fortified him now. 

“ On, by Jove ! he goes too far,” said Underwood. “ I am 
not squeamish, heaven knows, but he goes too far. I can 
speak now that it’s all over between him and me. I never 
could bear to see him with nice girls ; but he’s got his match 
in Miss Julia. The fair Julia — that is another pair of shoes.” 

“ Who was he meaning with his fair Julias?” said Mr. 
Williamson as they drove away. “Yon’s a scoundrel, if 
there ever was one, and young Erradeen is well rid of him. 
But whentheives cast out, honest folk get their ain. Would 
yon be true ? ” 

Katie was in what her father called “ a brown study,” 
and did not care to talk. She only shook her head— a ges- 
ture which could be interpreted as any one pleased. 

. “ I am not sure,’’ said Mr. Williamson, in reply. “ He 
knows more about Lord Erradeen than any person on the 
loch. But who is the fair Julia, and is he really to be mar- 
xied to her ? I would like fine to hear all about it. I will 
call at Auchnasheen in the afternoon and see what he has 
to say.” 

But Katie remained in her brown study, letting her 
father talk. She knew very well who the fair Julia was. 
She remembered distinctly the scene at Burlington House. 
She saw with the clearest perception what the tactics were 
of the ladies of the Lodge. Katie had been somewha,t ex- 
cited by the prospect of being Oona’s rival, which was like 
something in a book. It was like the universal story of the 
voung man’s choice, not between Venus and Minerva, or 
between good and evil, but perhaps, Katie thought, between 
poetry and prose, between the ideal and the practical. She 
was interested in that conflict, and not unwilling in all 
kmdness and honor to play her part in it. Oona would be 
the ideal bride for him, but she herself, Katie felt, would 
be better in a great many ways, and she did not feel that 
she would have any objection to marry Lord Erradeen. But 
here was another rival with whom she did not choose to 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


341 


enter the lists. It is to be feared that Katie in her heart clas- 
sified Miss Herbert as Y ice, as the sinner against whom every 
man is to be warned, and turned with some scorn from any 
comparison with her meretricious attractions. But she was 
fair and just, and her heart had nothing particular to do 
with the matter ; so that she was able calmly to wait for in- 
formation, whicli was not Oona’s case. 

It had been entirely at random that Lord Erradeen had 
announced his mother’s approaching arrival to Underwood. 
The idea had come into his mind the moment before he 
made use of it, and he had felt a certain amusement in the 
complete success of this hastily-assumed weapon. It had 
been so effectual that he began to think it might be avail- 
able in other conflicts as well as this : and in any case he 
felt himself pledged to make it a matter of fact. He walked 
to the village when Underwood had gone, to carry at once 
his attention into effect. Though it was only a cluster of 
some half dozen houses, it had a telegraph-office— as is so 
general in the Highlands— and Walter sent a brief, emphatic 
message, which he felt would carry wild excitement into 
Sloebury. You will do me a great favor if you will come 
at once, alone,” was Walter’s message. He was himself 
slightly excited by it. He began to think over all those 
primitive relationships of his youth as he walked along the 
quiet road. There w^as sweetness in them, but how much 
conflict, trouble, embarrassment !— claims on one side to 
which the other could not respond— a sort of authority— a 
duty which did nothing but establish grievances and mutual 
reproach. His mind was still in the state of exhaustion 
which Captain Under^vood had only temporarily disturbed ; 
and a certain softening was in the weakened faculties, which 
were worn out with too mmch conflict. Poor mother, after 
all . He could remember, looking back, when it was his 
greatest pleasure to go home to her, to talk to her, pouring 
every sort of revelation into her never-w^earied ears ; all his 
school success and tribulations, all about the other fellow’s, 
the injustices that w^ere done,the triumphs that v/ere gained. 
Could women interest themselves in all that as she had 
seemed to interest herself? or had she sometimes found it a 
bore to have all these schoolboy experiences poured forth 
upon her? Miss Merivale had very plainly thoiight it a 
bore ; his voice had given her a headache, but Mrs. Kuthven 
never had any headache nor anyhing that could clmid 
her attention. He remembered now that his mother 
was not a mere nursery wmman — that she read a great 
deal more than he himself did, knew many things he 
did not know, was not silly, or a fool, or narrow-minded, as 
so many wmmen are. Was it not a little hard, after all, that 
she should have nothing of her son but the schoolboy prat- 
tle? She had been everything to him when he was a boy, 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


342 

and now she was nothing to him ; perhaps all the time she 
might have been looking forward to the period when she 
should be a man, and have something more interesting to 
talk over with her than a cricket-match— for, to be sure, 
when one came to think of it, she could have no personal in- 
terest in a cricket-match. A momentary serrement of com- 
punction came to Walter’s heart. Poor mother ! he said to 
himself ; perhaps it was a little hard upon her. And she 
must have the feeling, to make it worse, that she had a right 
to something better. He could not even now get his mind 
clear about that right. ' 

As he returned from the telegraph office he too met the 
waggonette from Birkenbraes, which was stopped at sight 
of him with much energy on the part of Mr. Williamson. 

“ We’ve just met your friend Captain Underwood. If 
you’ll not take it amiss. Lord Erradeen, I will say that I’m 
very glad you’re not keeping a man like that about you. But 
what is this about— a lady ? I hear there’s a lady— the fair 
What did he call her, Katie ? I am not good at remem- 
bering names.” 

“ It is of no consequence,” said Katie, with a little rising 
color, “ what such a man said.” 

“ That’s true, that’s true,” said her father ; but still, 
Erradeen, you must mind we are old friends now, and let us 

know what’s coming. The fair Toots, I thought of it a 

minute ago! It’s ridiculous to forget names.” 

“ You may be sure I shall let you know what’s coming. 
My mother is coming,” Walter said. 

And this piece of news was so unexpected and startling 
that the Williamsons drove off with energy to spread it far 
and near. Mr. Williamson himself w^as as much excited as 
if it had been of personal importance to him. 

“Kow that will settle the young man,” he said: “that 
will put many things right. There has not been a lady at 
Auchnasheen since ever I have been here. A mother is the 
next best thing to a wife, and very likely the one is in pre- 
paration for the other, and ye will all have to put on your 
prettiest frocks for her approval.” He followed this with 
one of his big laughs, looking round upon a circle in which 
there were various young persons who w^ere very marriage- 
able. “ But I put no faith in Underwood’s fair— wKat was 
it he called her?” Mr. Williamson said. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Two days after, Mrs. Methven arrived at Kinloch Houran 
by the afternoon coach, alone. 

She had interpreted very literally the telegram which had 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


343 


brought such a tremor yet such a movement of joy to her 
heart. Her son wanted her. Perhaps he might he ill, cer- 
tainly it must be for soipething serious and painful that she 
was called; yet he wanted her! She had been very quiet 
and patient, waiting if perhaps his heart might be touched 
and he might recall the tie of nature and his own promises, 
feeling with a sad pride that she wanted nothing of him but 
his love, and that without that the line houses and the new 
wealth were nothing to her. She was pleased even to stand 
aloof, to be conscious of having in no way prolited by Walter';' 
advancement. She had gained nothing bv it, she wislied 
to gain nothing by it. If Walter were well, then there was no 
need for more. She had enough for herself without troubling 
him. So long as all was well ! But this is at the best a for- 
lorn line of argument, and it cannot be doubted that Mrs. 
Methven’s bosom throbbed with a great pang of disappoint- 
ment when she sat and smiled to conceal it, and answered 
questions about Walter, yet could not say that she had seen 
him or any of his places in Scotland,” or knew much more 
than her questioners did. When his message arrived her 
heart leapt in her breast. There were no explanations, no 
reason given, but that imperative call, such as mothers love 
to have addressed to them : “ Come ; ” all considerations of 
her own comfort set aside in the necessity for her which had 
arisen at last. Another might have resented so complete an 
indifference to what might happen to suit herself. But there 
are connections and relationships in which this is the highest 
compliment. He knew that it did not matter to her what 
her own convenience was, so long as he wanted her. She got 
up from her chair at once, and proceeded to put her things 
together to get ready for the journey. With a smiling coun- 
tenance she prepared herself for the night train. She would 
not even take a maid. “ He says, alone. He must have some 
reason for it I suppose,” she said to Miss JVIerivale. “ I am 
the reason,” said Cousin Sophy ; “he doesn’t want me. You 
can tell him with my love, that to travel all night is not at 
all in my way, and he need have had no fear on that subject.” 
But Mrs. Methven would not agree to thiSj and departed 
hurriedly without any maid. She was surprised a little, yet 
would not allow herself to be displeased, that no one came 
to meet her : but it was somewhat forlorn to be set down on 
the side of the loch in the wintry afternoon, with the cold, 
gleaming water before her, and no apparent way of getting 
to the end of her journey. 

“ Oh yes, mem’, you might drive round the head of the 
loch : but it’s a long way,” the landlady of the little inn said, 
smoothing down her apron at the door, “ and far simpler just 
crossing the water, as everybody does in these parts.’’ 

^Irs. Methven was a little nervous about crossing the 
water. She was tired and disappointed, and a chill had 


344 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


crept to her heart. While she stood hesitating a young lady 
came up, whose boat waited for her on the beach, a man in a 
red shirt standing at the bow. 

“ It is a lady for Auchnasheen, Miss Oona,” said the land- 
lady, “ and no boat. Duncan is aw'ay, and for the moment I 
have not a person to send : and his lordship will maybe be 
out on the hill, or he will have forgotten, or maybe he wasna 
sure when to expect you, mem ? ” 

“ No, he did not know when to expect me. I hope there 
is no illness,” said Mrs. Methven, with a thrill of apprehen- 
sion. 

At this the young lady came forward with a shy yet frank 
grace. 

‘‘ If you will let me take you across,” she said, “my boat 
is ready. I am Oona Forrester. Lord Erradeen is quite well 
I think, and I heard that he expected — his mother.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Methven. She gave the young stranger 
a penetrating look. Her own aspect was perhaps a little 
severe, for her heart had been starved and repressed, and she 
w^ore it very warm and low dowui in her bosom, never upon 
her sleeve. There rose, over Oona’s countenance a soft and 
delicate flush under the eyes of Walter’s mother. She had 
nothing in the w^orld to blush for, and probably that was 
why the color rose. They were of infinite interest to each 
other, tw^o souls meeting, as it were, in the dark, quite un- 
known to each other, and yet — who could tell ?— to be very 
near perhaps in times to come. The look they interchanged 
w^as a mutual question. Then Mrs. Methven felt herself 
bound to take up her invariable defence of her son. 

“ He did not, most likely, think that I could arrive so 
soon. I was WTong not to let him know. If I accept your 
kindness will it be an inconvenience to you ? ” 

This question was drowned in Oona’s immediate response 
and in the louder protest of Mrs. Macfarlane. “ Bless me, 
mem, you canna know the loch ! for theie is nobody but 
would put themselves about to help a traveller : and above 
all Miss Oona, that just has no other thought. Colin, put in 
the lady’s box intill the boat, and Hamish, he will give ye a 
hand.” 

Thus it was settled without further delay. It seemed to 
the elder lady like a dream when she found herself afloat 
upon this unknow)! water, the mountains standing round, 
with their heads all clear and pale in the wonderful atmos- 
phere from which the last rays of the sunset had but lately 
faded, w^hile down below in this twilight scene the color had 
begun to go out of the autumn trees and red walls of the 
ruined castle, at which she looked with a curiosity full of 

excitement. “ That is ? ” she said, pointing with a strange 

sensation of eagerness. 

“ That is Kinloch Houran,” said Gena, to whose sympa- 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


345 

thetic mind, she could not tell how, there came a tender, 
pitying comprehension of the feelings of the mother, thus 
thrust alone and without any guide into the other life of her 
son. 

“ It is very strange to me— to see the place where Walter 

You know perhaps that neither my son nor I were 

ever here until he ” 

“ Oh yes,” Oona said hastily, interrupting the embarrass- 
ed speech ; and she added, “ My mother and I have been 
here always, and everybody on the loch knows everybody 
else. We were aware ” 

And then she paused too ; but her companion took no 
notice, her mind being fully occupied. “ I feel,” she said, 
“ like a woman in a dream.” 

It was very still on the loch, scarcely a breath stirring 
(which was very fortunate, for Mrs. Methven, unaccustomed, 
had a little tremor for the dark water even though so 
smooth). The autumnal trees alone, not quite put out by 
the falling darkness, seemed to lend a little light as they 
hung, reflected, over the loch— a redder cluster here and 
there looking like a fairy lamp below the water. A thou- 
sand suggestions were in the air, and previsions of she knew 
not what, a hidden life surrounded her on every side. Her 
brain was giddy, her heart full. By and by she turned to 
her young companion, who was so sympathetically silent, and 
whose soft voice when slie spoke, with the little cadence of 
an accent unfamiliar yet sweet, had a half caressing sound 
which touched the solitary woman. “ You say your mother 
and you,” she said. “ Are you too an only child ? ” 

“ Oh no ; there are eight of us : but I am the youngest, 
the only one left. All the boys are away. We live on the 
isle. I hope you will come and see us. My mother will be 
glad ” 

“And she is not afraid to trust you— by yourself? It 
must be a happy thing for a woman to have a daughter,” 
Mrs. Methven said, with a sigh. “ The boys, as you say, go 
away.” 

“ Nobody here is afraid of the loch,” said Oona. “ Acci- 
dents, happen— oh, very rarely. Mamma is a little nervous 
about yacnting, for the winds come down from tlie hills in 
gusts ; but Hamish is the steadiest oar, and there is no fear. 
Do you see now the lights at Auchnasheen ? There is some 
one waiting, at the laiiding-place. It will be Lord Erradeen, 
or some one from the house. Hamish, mind the current. 
You know how it sweeps the boat up the loch ? ” 

“ It will just be the wash of that confounded steamboat,” 
Hamish said. 

The voices sounded in the air without conveying any 
sense to her mind. Was that Walter, the vague line of 
darker shadow upon the shade ? Was it his house she was 


THE WIZARD'S SON 


346 

going to, his life that she was entering once more? A'' 
doubts were put to an end speedily by W alter’s voice. 

“ It is Hamish ? ” he cried out. 

“ Oh, Lord Erradeen, it is me,” cried Oona, in her soft 
Scotch. “ And 1 am bringing you your mother.” 

The boat grated on the bank as she spoke, and this dis- 
guised the tremor in her voice, which Mrs. Methven quite 
incapable of distinguishing anything else, was yet fully 
sensible of. She stepped out tremulously into her son’s 
arms. 

“ Mother,” he cried, “ what must you think of me for not 
coming to meet you ? I never thought you could be here so 
soon.” 

“ I should have come by telegraph if I could,” she said, 
with an agitated laugh : so tired so tremulous, so happy, the 
strangest combination of feelings overwhelming her. But 
still she was aware of a something, a tremor, a tingle in 
Oona’s voice. The boat receded over the water almost without 
a pause, Hamish, uuder impulsion of a whispered word, hav- 
ing pushed off again as soon as the traveller and h^r box was 
landed. W alter paused to call out his thanks over the water, 
and then he drew his mother’s arm within his, and led her 
up the bank. 

“Where is Jane?” he said. “Have you no one with 
you ? Have you travelled all night, and alone, mother, for 
me ? ” 

“ For whom should I do it, but for you ? And did you 
think I would lose a minute after your message, Walter? 
But you are well, there is nothing wrong with your health ? ” 

“Nothing wrong with my health,” he said with a half 
laugh. “No, that is safe enough. I have not deserved that 
you should come to me, mother ” 

“ Tliere is no such word as deserving between mother 
and son,” she said tremulously, “ so long as you want me, 
Walter.” 

“Take care of those steps,” was all he said. “We are 
close nfuv to the house. I nope you will find your rooms 
comfortable. I fear they have not been occupied for some 
time. But what shall you do without a maid ? Perhaps the 
housekeeper ” 

“ You said to come alone, Walter.” 

“Oh yes. I Avas afraid of Cousin Sophy ; but you could 
not think I wanted to impair your comfort, mother ? Here 
we are at the door, and here is Symington, very glad to re- 
ceive his lady.” 

“ But you must not let him call me so.” 

“ Why not ? You are the lady to all of us. You are the 
lady of the house, and I bid you welcome to it, mother,” he 
said, pausing to kiss her. She had a thousand thmgs to for- 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


347 

give, but in that moment they were as though they had not 
been. 

And there was not much more said until she had settled 
down into possession of the library, which miswered instead 
of a drawing-room, and had dined, and been brought back to 
the glowing peat fire which gave an aromatic breath of 
warmth and character to the Highland house. When all 
the business of the arrival had thus been gone throiigli, 
there came a moment when it was apparent that subjects of 
more importance must be entered upon. There was a pause, 
and an interval of complete silence which seemed much 
longer than it really was. Walter stood before the fire for 
some time, while she sat close by, her hands clasped in her 
lap, ready to attend. Then he began to move about uneasily, 
feeling tne compulsion of the moment, yet unprepared with 
anythmg to say. At length it was she who began. 

“ You sent for me, Walter ? ” she said. 

“Yes, mother.” 

Was there nothing more to tell her? He threw about 
half the books on the table, and then he came back again, 
and once more faced her, standing wdth his back to the fire. 

“ My dear,” she said, hesitating, “ it is with no reproach I 

speak, but only There was some reason for sending for 

me ?” 

He gave once more a nervous laugh. 

“You have good reason to be angry if you will ; but I’ll 
tell you the truth, mother. I made use of you to get rid of 
Underwood. He followed me here, and I told him you were 
coming, and that he could not stay against the will of the 
mistress of the house. Then I was bound to ask you ” 

The poor lady drew back a little, and instinctively put 
her hand to her heart, in which there was a hot thrill of 
sensation, as if an arrow had gone in. And then in the pang 
of it, she laughed too, and cried,— 

“ You were bound, to be sure, to fulfil your threat. And 
this' is why— this is why, Walter ” . , 

She coiild not say more without being hysterical, and 
departing from every rule she had made for herself. 

Meanwhile, Walter stood before her, feeling in his own 
heart the twang of that arrow which had gone through hers, 
and the pity of it and wonder of it, with a poignant realization 
of all ; and yet found nothing to say. 

After a while Mrs. Methven regained her composure, and 
spoke with a smile that was almost more pathetic than 

“ After all, it was a very good reason. I am glad you used 
me to get rid of that man.’^ , 

“I always told you, mother,” he said, “that you had a 
most absurd prejudice against that man. There is no partic- 


THE WIZARD^ S SON. 


348 

ular harm in the man. I had got tired of him. He is well 
enough in his own way, but he was out of place here.” 

“ Well, Walter, we need not discuss Captain Underwood. 
But don’t you see it is natural that I should exaggerate his 
importance by way of giving myself the better reason for 
having come?” 

The touch of bitterness and sarcasm that was in her 
words made Walter start from his place again, and once 
more turn over the books on the table. She was not a perfect 
woman to dismiss all feeling from what she said, and her 
heart was wrung. 

After a while he returned to her again. 

“ Mother, I acknowledge you have a good right to be dis- 
pleased. But that is not all. I am glad, anyhow— heartily 
glad to have you here.” 

She looked up at him with her eyes full, and quivering 
lips. Everything went by impulse in the yomig man’s mind, 
and this look— in which for once in his life he read the truth, 
the eagerness to forgive, the willingness to forget, the pos- 
sibility, even in the moment of her deepest pain of giving 
her happiness — went to his heart. After all it is a wonderful 
thing to have a human creature thus altogether dependent 
upon your words, your smile, ready to encounter ail things 
for you, without hesitation, without a grudge. And why 
should she ? What had he ever done for lier? And she was 
no fool. These thoughts had already passed through his 
mind with a realization of the wonder of it all, which seldom 
strikes the young at sight of the devotion of the old. All 
these things flashed back upon him at sight of the dumb an- 
guish yet forgiveness in her eyes. 

“ Mother,’^he cried, “ there’s enough of this between you 
and me. I want you not for Underwood, but for everything. 
Why should you care for a cad like me ? but you do ” 

“ Care for you ? Oh, my boy ! ” 

“I know; there you sit that have travelled night and 
day because I held up my finger ; and would give me your 
life if you could, and bear everything, and never change and 
never tire. Why, in the name of God, why ? ” he cried with 
an outburst. “ What have I ever done that you should do 
this for me ? You are worth a score of such as I am, and yet 
you make yourself a slave.” 

“ Oh, Walter, my dear ! how vain are all these words. I 
am your mother,” she said. 

Presently he drew a chair close to her and sat down 
beside her. 

“All these things have been put before me,” he said, 
“to drive me to despair. 1 have tried to say that it was this 
vile lordship, and the burden of the family, that has made 
me bad, mother. But you know better than that,” he said, 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


349 

looking up at her with a stormy gleam in his face that could 
not he called a smile, “ and so do I.” 

“ Walter, God forbid that I should ever have thought you 
bad. You have been led astray.” 

“To do— what I wanted to do,” he said with another 
smile, “ that is what is called leading astray between a man 
and those who stand between him and the devil ; but I have 
talked with one who thinks of no such punctilios. Mother, 
vice deserves damnation ; isn’t that your creed ? ” 

“ Walter ! ” 

“ Oh, I know ; but listen to me. If. that were so, would a 
v/oman like you stand by the wretch still ?” 

“ My d;^arest boy ! you are talking wildly. There are no 
circumstances, none ! in which I should not stand by you.” 

“ That is what I thought,” he said, “ you and— Blit they 
say that you don’t know, you women, how bad a man can be j 
and that if you knew — And then as for God ” 

“ God knows everything, Walter.” 

“ Ay : and knows that never in my life did I care for or 
appeal to Him, till in despair. If you think of it, these are 
not things a man can do, mother : take refuge with women 
who would loathe him if they knew ; or with God, who does 
know that only in desperation, only when nothing else is left 
him, he calls out that name like a spell. Yes, that is all ; like 
an incantation, to get rid of the fiend.” 

The veins were swollen on Walter’s forehead ; great drops 
of moisture hung upon it; on the other hand his lips were 
parched and diy, his eyes gleaming with a hot treacherous 
lustre. Mrs. Methven,*as she looked at him, grew sick with 
terror. She began to think that his brain was giving away. 

“ What am I to say to you ? ” she cried ; “ who has been 
speaking so ? It cannot be a friend, Walter. That is not the 
way to bring back a soul.” 

He laughed, and the sound alarmed her still more. 

“There was no friendship intended,” he said, “nor refor- 
mation either. It was intended — to make me a slave.” 

“ To whom, oh ! to whom ? ” 

He had relieved his mind by talking thus ; but it was by 
putting his burden upon her. She was agitated beyond 
measure by these partial confidences. She took his hands in 
hers, and pleaded with him — 

“ Oh, Walter, my darling, what has happened to you? 
Tell me what you mean.” 

“ I am not mad, mother, if that is what you think.” 

“ I don’t think so, Walter. I don’t know what to think. 
Tell me. Oh, my boy, have pity upon me ; tell me.” 

“ You will do me more good, mother, if you will tell me— 
how I am to get this burden off, and be a free man.” 

“ The burden of— what ? Sin ? Oh, my son ! ” she cried, 
rising to her feet, with tears of joy streaming from her eyes. 


350 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


She put her hands upon his head and bade God bless hini i 
“ There is no doubt about that \ no difficulty about that,” 
.she said ; “ for everything else m the world there may be 
micertainty, but for this none, God is more ready to forgive 
than we are to ask. If you wish it sincerely with all your 
heart, it is done. He is never far from any of us. He is here, 
Walter— here, ready to pardon ! ” 

He took her hands which she had put upon him, and 
looked at her, shaking his head. 

“ Mother, you are going too fast,” he said. “ I want de- 
liverance, it is true ; but I don’t know if it is that I mean.” 

“ That is at the bottom of all, Walter.” 

He put her softly into her chair, and calmed her agitation, 
then he began to walk up and down the room. 

“ That is religion,” he said. “ I suppose it is at the bottom 
of all. What was it you used to teach me mother, about a 
new heart ? Can a man enter a second time— and be born ? 
That seems all so visionary when one is living one's life. 
You think of hundreds of expedients first. To thrust it away 
from you, and forget all about it ; but that does not answer : 
to defy it and go the other way out of misery and spite. 
Then to try compromises ; marriage for instance with a wife 
perhaps, one thinks ” 

“My dear,” said Mrs. Methven, with a sad sinking of dis- 
appointment in her heart after her previous exultation, yet 
determined that her sympathy should not fail, “ If you had 
a good wife no one would be so happy as I — a good girl who 
would help you to live a good life.’’ 

Here he came up to her again, and, leaning against the 
table, burst into a laugh. But there was no mirtn in it. A 
sense of the ludicrous is not always mirthful. 

“A girl,” he said, “mother, who would bring another 
fortune to the family : who would deluge us with money, and 
fill out the lines of the estates, and make peace — peace be- 
tween me and — And not a bad girl either,” he added with 
a softening tone, “ far too good for me. An honest, upright 
little soul, only not— the best : only, not the one who— would 
hate me if she knew ” 

“ Walter,” said Mrs. Methven, trembling, “I don’t under- 
stand you. Your words seem very wild to me. I am all con- 
fused with them, and my brain seems to be going. What is 
it you mean ? Oh, if you would tell me all you mean and not 
only a part which I cannot understand ! ” 

There never happens in any house a conversation of a vital 
kind which is not interrupted at a critical moment by the en- 
trance of the servants, those legitimate intruders who can 
never be staved off. It was Symington now who came in 
with tea, which, with a woman^s natural desire to prevent 
any suspicion of agitation in the family, she accepted. When 
he had gone the whole atmosphere was changed. AYalter had 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


351 

seated himself by the fire with the newspapers which had 
just come in, and all the emotion and attendrissement were 
over. He said to her, looking up from his reading — 

By the by, mother, Julia Herbert is herewith some cou- 
sins ; they will be sure to call on you. But I don’t want to 
have any more to do with them than we can help. You will 
manage that?” 

“Julia Herbert,” she said. The countenance which had 
melted into so much softness, froze again and grew severe. 
“ Here ! why should she be here ? Indeed, I hope I shall be 
able to manage that, as you say.” 

But oh, what ignoble offices for a woman who would have 
given her life for him as he knew! To frighten away Under- 
wood, to “manage Julia. Patience ! so long as it was for 
her boy. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

On the next morrung after his mother’s arrival. Lord Er- 
radeen set out early for Birkenbraes. Everything pushed him 
towards a decision ; even a prompt arrival, which he had not 
anticipated, and the clearing away from his path of the sim- 
pler and more easy difficulties that beset him, by her means.. 
But what was far more than this was the tug at his heart, 
the necessity that lay before him to satisfy, one way or other, 
the demands of his tyrant. He could not send away that spir- 
itual enemjr, who held him in his grip, as he did the vulgar 
influence c c Underwood. That had disgusted him almost 
from the first; he had never tolerated it, evhn when he 
vielded to it, and the effort he had made in throwing it over 
had been exhilaratiiig to him, and gave a certain satisfaction 
to his mind. But now that was over, and he had returned 
again to the original question, and found himself once more 
confronted by that opponent who could not be shaken off— 
who, one way or other, must he satisfied or vanquished, if 
life were to be possible. Vanquished? How Avas he to be 
vanquished ?— by a i)ure man and a strong — by a pure woman 
and her love— by the help of God against a spiritual tyranny. 
He smiled to himself as he hurried along the road, thinking 
of the hopelessness of all this— himself neither pure nor 
strong ; and Oona, Avho, if she knew— and God, whom, as his 
tempter had said, he had never sought nor thought of till 
now. He hurried along to try if the second best was within 
his reach : perhaps even that might fail him for anything he 
knew. The thought of meeting the usual party in the house 
of the Williamsons was so abhorrent to him, and such a dis- 
gust had risen in his mind of all the cheerful circumstances 
of the big, shining house, that he set out early Avith the in- 
tention 01 formally seeking an inte vie av with Katie, and thus 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


352 

committing himself from the beginning. The morning was 
bright and fair, with a little shrill wind about, which brought 
the yellow leaves fluttering to his feet, and carried them 
across him as he walked now detached and solitary, now in 
little drifts and heaps. He hurried along, absorbed in his 
own thoughts, shutting his eyes to the vision of the isle, as 
it lay all golden, russet, and brcwn upon the surface of the 
water which gave its colors back; Walteimvould not look 
nor see the boat pushing round the corner, with the back of 
Ilamish s red shirt alone showing, as the prow came beyond 
the shade of the trees. He did not see the boat, and yet he 
knew it was there, and hurried, hurried on to escape all re- 
minders. The great door at Birkenbraes stood open, as was 
its wont the great stone sterns lying vacant in the sunshine, 
and everything still about. It was the only hour at which 
the place was quiet. The men were out on the hill, the 
ladies following such rational occupations as they might 
have, and the house had an air of relief and repose. Walter 
felt that he pronounced his own fate when he asked to see 
Miss Williamson. 

“Mr. Williamson is out, my lord,” the solemn func- 
tionary said, who v/as far more important and dignified 
than the master of the house. “I asked to see Miss William- 
son,” Lord Erradeen repeated, with a little impatience ; and 
he saw the man’s eyebrows raised. 

So far as the servants were concerned, and through them 
the whole district, Walter’s “intentions” stood revealed. 

Kate Williamson wms alone. She was, in her favorite 
room — the room specially given over to her amusements and 
occupations. It was not a small room, for such a thing 
scarcely existed in Birkenbraes. It was full of window^s, 
great expanses of plate glass, through which the mountains 
and the loch appeared uninterrupted, save by a line 01 frame- 
work here and there, with a curious open air effect. It was 
in one of the corners of the house, and the windows formed 
two sides of the brilliant place ; on the others were mirrors 
refiecting the mountains back again. She sat between them 
her little fair head the only solid thing which the light en- 
countered. When she rose, with a somewhat astonished air 
to receive her visitor, her trim figure, neat and alert stood 
out against the background of the trees and rocks on the 
lower slopes of the hills. A curious transparency, distinct- 
ness, and absence of privacy and mystery were in the scene. 
The two might have come' together there in the sight of all 
the world. 

“ Lord Erradeen ! ” Katie said, with surprise, almost con- 
sternation. “ But if I had been told you were here, I should 
have come downstairs to you. Kobody but my great 
friends, nobody but wmmeii, ever come.” 

“ I should have thought that any one might come. There 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


353 


are no concealments here^” he said, expressing the senti- 
ment of the place unconsciously. Then, seeing that Kate’s 
color rose: “Your boudoir is not all curtained and shadowy, 
but open and candid — as you are.” 

“ That last has saved you,” said Katie, with a laugh. 
“ I know what you mean— and that is that my room (for it is 
not a boudoir— I never houde) is far too light, too clear for 
the fashion. But this is my fashion, and people who come 
to me must put up with it.” She added, after a moment : 
“ What did you say to Sanderson, Lord Erradeen, to induce 
him to bring you here ? ” 

“ I said I wanted to see Miss Williamson.” 

“That was understood,” said, Kate, once more with an 
increase of color, and looking at him with a suppressed ques- 
tion in her eyes. Her heart gave a distinct knock against 
her breast, but did not jump up and flutter, as hearts less 
well regulated will do in such circumstances ; for she too 
perceived what Sanderson had perceived, that the interview 
was not one to take place amid all the interruptions of the 
drawin.g-room. Sanderson was a very clever person, and liis 
young mistress- agreed with him ; but, nevertheless, made a 
private memorandum that he should have notice, and that 
she would speak to papa. 

“Yes, I think it must be easily understood. I have come 
to you with a great deal that is very serious to say.” 

* You look very serious,” said Katie ; and then she added, 
hurriedly, “ And 1 want very much to speak to you, Lord 
Erradeen. I want you to tell me— who was that gentleman 
at Kinloch Houran ? I have never been able to get him out 
of my mind. Is he paying you a visit ? What is his name ? 
•Has he been in this country before? But oh, to be sure, he 
must have been for he knew everything about the castle. I 
want to. know. Lord Erradeen ” 

“ After you have heard what I have got to say ” 

“Ko, not after— before. I tremble when I think of him. 
It is ridiculous, I know: but I never had any such sensation 
before. I should think he must be a mesmerist, or some- 
thing of that sort,” Katie said, with a pale and nervous 
smile ; “ though I don’t believe in mesmerism,” she added, 
quickly. 

“ You believe in nothing of the kind— is it not so ? You 
put no faith in the stories about my family, in the innuence 
of the past on the present, in the despotisrq — But why say 
anything on that subject? You laugh.” 

“ I believe in superstition,” said Katie, somewhat tremu- 
lously, “and that it impresses the imagination, and puts you 
in a condition to believe— things. And then there is a pride 
in having anything of the sort connected with one’s own 
family,” she said recovering herself. “If it was our ghost 
I should believe in it too.” 


354 


THE WIZARD'S SOH, 


“Ghost — ^is not a word that means much,” Walter said. 
And then there ^as a pause. It seemed to him that his lips 
were sealed, and that he had no longer command of the or- 
dinary words. He had known what he meant to say when 
he came, hut the power seemed to have gone from him. He 
stood and looked out upon the wide atmosphere, and the 
freedom of the hills, with a blank in his mind, and that 
sense that nothing is any longer of importance or meaning 
which comes to those who are baffled in their purpose at the 
outset. It was Katie who with a certain sarcasm in her 
tone recalled him to himself. “ You came— because you had 
something serious to say to me. Lord Erradeen.” She was 
aware of what he intended to say; : but his sudden hesita- 
tion at the very beginning had raised the mocking spirit in 
Katie. She was ready to defy and provoke, and silence 
with ridicule the man whom she had no objection to accept 
as her husband— provided he found his voice. 

“ It is true— I had something very serious to say. I came 
to ask you whether you could — ” All this time he was not 
so much as looking at her ; his eyes were fixed dreamily and 
rather sadly upon the landscape which somehow seemed so 
much more important than tne speck of small humanity 
which he ought to have been addressing. But at this point 
Walter recollected himself, and came in as it were from the 
big silent observing world, to Katie, sitting expectant, divided 
between mockery and excitement, with a flush on her cheeks, 
but a contraction of her brows, and an angry yet smiling 
mischief in her eyes. 

“ To ask you,’’ he said, “ whether vou would — pass your 
life with me. I am not much worth the taking. There is a 
poor title, there is a family which we might restore and— 
emancipate perhaps. You are rich, it wguld be of no advan- 
tage to you. But at all events it would not be like, asking 
you to banish yourself, to leave all you cared for. I have 
little to say for myself,” he went on after a pause with a 
little more energy, “ you know me well enougn. Whether 
I should ever be good for anything would — most likely — rest 
with you. I am at present under great depression — in trou- 
ble and fear ” 

Here he came to another pause, and looked out upon the 
silent mountains and great breadths of vacant air in which 
there ^Vas nothing to help ; then with a sigh turned again 
and held out his hand. “ Will you have me— Katie ? ” he 
said. « 

Katie sat gazing at him with a wonder which had by de- 
grees extinguished the sarcasm, the excitement, the expecta- 
tion, that v/ere in her face. She was almost awestricken by 
this strangest of all suits that could be addressed to a girl — 
a demand for herself which made no account of herself, and 
missed out love and every usual preliminary. It was serious 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


355 

indeed — as serious as death : more like that than the begin- 
ning of the most living of- all links. She could not answer 
him with the indignation which in other circumstances she 
might have felt. It was too solemn for any ebullition of feel- 
ing. She felt overawed, little as this mood was congenial to 
her. 

“Lord Erradeen,” she said, you seem to he in great 
trouble.” 

He made an affirmative movement of his head, but said no 
more. 

“—Or you would not put such a strange question to me,” 
she went on : “ Why should I have you ? When a man offers 
himself to a girl he says it is because he loves her. You don’t 
love me — ” 

She made a momentary breathless pause with a half hope 
of being interrupted ; but save by a motion of his hand, 
Walter made no sign. “You don^t love me,” she went on 
with some vehemence, “nor do you ask me to love you, 
Such a proposal might be an insult. But I don’t think you 
mean it as an insult ” 

“ Hot that. You know better. Anything but that ! ” 

“ Ho — I don’t think it is that. But what is it then. Lord 
Erradeen ? ” 

Her tone had a certain peremptory sound which touched 
the capricious spring by which the young man’s movements 
were regulated. He came to himself. “Miss Williamson,” 
he said, “ when you ran away from me in London it was im- 
minent that I should ask you this question. It was expected 
on all sides. You went away, I nave always believed, to 
avoid it.” 

“ Why should it have been imminent ? I went away,” 
cried Katie, forgetting the contradiction, “ because some one 
came in who seemed to have a prior right. She is here now 
with the same meaning.” 

“ She has no prior right. She has no right at all, nor does 
she claim any,” he said hurriedly. “ It is accident. Katie ! 
had you stayed, all would have been determined then, and 
one leaf of bitter folly left out of mj^ life.” 

“ Supposing it to be so,” she said calmly, “ I am not re- 
sponsible for your life. Lord Erradeen. Why should I be 
asked to step in and save yoti from— bitter folly or anything 
else. And this life that you offer me, are you sure it is fit for 
an honest girl to take ? The old idea that a woman should be 
sacrificed to reform a man has gone out of fashion. Is that 
the role you want me to take up ? ” Katie cried, rising to her 
feet in her excitement. “ Captain Underwood (whose word 
I would never take) said you were bad, unworthy a good 
woman. Is that true ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said in a low tone, “ it is true.” 

K atie gazed at him for a moment, and then in her excite- 


THE V/IZAKHS SON. 


35 ^ 

ment sat dovm and cried, covering her face with her hands. 
She it was, though she was not emotional, who was overcome 
with feeling. Walter stood gazing at her with a sort of stu- 
pefaction, seeing the scene pass with a sense that he was a 
spectator rather than an actor in it, his dark figure swaying 
slightly against the clearness of the landscape which took so 
strange a part in all that was happening. It had passed no^v 
altogether out of his hands. 

As for Katie, it would he impossible to tell what sudden 
softening, what pity, mingled with keen vexation and an- 
noyance, lorced these tears from her eyes. Her heart revolted, 
against him and melted towards him ail at once. Her pride 
would not let her accept such a proposal ; and yet she would 
have liked to accept him, to take him in hand, to be his provi- 
dence, and the moulder of his fate. A host of hurrying 
thoughts and sentiments rushed headlong through her mind. 
She had it in her to do it, better than any silly woman of the 
world, better than a creature of visionary soul like Oona. 
She was practical, she was strong, she could do it. But then 
all her pride rose up in arms. She wept a few hot impatient 
tears wmich were irrestrainable : then raised her head again. 

“I am very sorry for you,” she said. “If you were my 
brother, Lord Erradeen, 1 would help you with all my might, 
or if I— cared for you more than you care for me. But I 
don’t,” she added after a pause. 

He made an appealing deprecating movement with his 
hands, but did not speak. 

“ I almost wish I did ” said Katie, regretfully ; “ if I had 
been fond of you I should have said yes : fot you are right in 
thinking I could do it. I should not have minded what 
went before. I should have taken you up and helped you on. 
I know that I could have done it ; but then I am not— fond of 
you,” she said slowly. She did not look at him as she spoke : 
but had he renewed his claim upon her, even with his eyes, 
Katie would have seen it, and might have allowed herself to 
be persuaded still. But Walter said nothing. He stood 
vaguely in the light without a movement, accepting what- 
ever she might choose to say. She remained silent for a time, 
’waiting. And then Katie sprang to her feet again, all the 
riore^ indignant and impatient that she had been so near 
yielding, had he but known. “ Well ! ” she said, “ is it I that 
am to maintain the conversation ? Have you anything more 
to sajg Lord Erradeen ? ” 

“L suppose not,” he answered slowly. “I came to you 
hoping perhaps for deliverance, at least partial— for deliver- 
ance— Kow that you will not, there is nothing for it but a 
struggle to the death.” 

She looked at him with a sort %f vertigo of amazement. 
Kot a "word about her, no regret for losing her, not a touch 
of sentiment, of gratitude, not even any notice of what she 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


357 

had said ! The sensation of awe came., hack to her as she 
stood before this insensibility which was half sublime. Was 
he mad ? or a wretch, an egotist, wanting a woman to do 
something for him, but without a thought for the wmman ? 

“ I am glad,” she said, with irrepressible displeasure, 
“ that it affects you so little. And now I suppose the incident 
is over and we may return to our occupations. I was busy 
— with my housekeeping,” she said, with a laugh. “One 
might sometimes call a struggle with one’s bills a struggle to 
the death.” 

He gave her a look which was half anger, half remon- 
strance : and then to Katie’s amazement resumed in a n^o- 
ment the tone of easy intercourse which had always existed 
betW'een them. 

“ You will find your bills refreshing after this high-flown 
talk,” he said. “Forgive me. You know I am not given to 
romantic sentiment any more than yourself.” 

“ I don’t know,” said Katie, offended. “ that I am less open 
to the romantic than other people, when the right touch is 
given.” 

‘ “But it is not my hand that can give the right touch ? ” 
he said. “ I accept my answer as there is nothing else for 
me to do. But I cannot abandon the country,” iie added 
after aihoment, “ and I hope we may still meet as good 
friends.” 

“Nothing has happened,” said Katie with dignity, “to 
lessen my friendship for you. Lord Erradeen.” She could 
not help putting a faint emphasis on the pronouns. The man 
rejected may dislike to meet the woman who has rejected 
him, but the woman can have no feeling in the matter. She 
held out her hand with a certain stateliness of dismissal. 
“ Papa need not know,” she said, “ and so there will be noth- 
ing more abort it. Good-by.” 

Walter tof k her hand in his, with a momentary percep- 
tion that perhaps there had been more than lay on the sur- 
face in this interview, on her side as well as his. He stooped 
down and kissed it respectfully, and even with something 
like tenderness. “ You do not refuse it to me, in friendship, 
even after all you have heard ? ” 

“ It shall always be yours in friendship,” Katie said, the 
color rising high in her face. 

She was glad he went away without looking at her again. 
She sat down and listened to his footsteps along the long 
corridor and down the stairs with a curious sensation as if 
he carried something with him that would not return to her 
again. And for long after she sat in the broad daylight 
without moving, leaving the books upon the table— which 
were not house-keeping books— untouched— going over this 
strange interview, turning over all the past that had any 
connection with Lord Erradeen. It seemed all to roll out 


THE WJZARHS SON. 


35S 

before her like a story that had been full of interest ; and 
now here was the end of it. Such a fit of wistful sadness 
had seldom come over the active and practical intelligence 
of Katie. It gave her for the moment a new opening in 
nature. But by degrees her i)roper moods came back. She 
clos*ed this poetical chapter with a sidi, and her sound mind 
took up with a more natural regret the opportunity for con- « 
genial effort which she had been compelled to give up. She 
said to herself that she would not have minded that vague 
badness which he had owned, and Underwood had accused 
him of. She could have brought him back. She had it in her 
to take the charge even of a man’s life. So she thought in inex- 
perience yet Avith the i)owerful confidence which so often is 
the best means of fulhlling triumphantly what it aims at. She 
Avould not have shrunk from the endeavor. She would have 
put her vigorous young will into his feeble one, she thought, 
and made him, with her force poured into him, a rdan indeed, 
contemptuous- of all miserable temptations, able to sail over 
and despise them. As she mused her eyes took an eager 
look, her very fingers twitched with the wish to be doing. 
Had he come back then it is very possible that Katie would 
have announced to him her change of mind, her deter- 
mination “to pull him through.” For she could have done 
it! she repeated to herself. Whatever his burdens had been, 
when she Trad once set her shoulder to the wheel she would 
have done it. Gambling, wine, even the spell of such women 
as Katie blushed to think of — she would have shrunk before 
none of these. His deliverance would not have been partial 
as he had said, but complete. She would have fouglit the 
very devils for hmi and brought him off. What a work it 
was that she had missed ! not a mere commonplace marriage 
with nothing to do. But with a sigh Katie had to acknowl- 
edge that it was over. She could not have accepted him, 
she said, excusing herself to herself. It would have been 
impossible. A man who asks you like that., not even pre- 
tending to care for you— you could not do it ! But, alas ! 
(what an opportunity lost. Saying this she gave herself a 
shake, and smoothed her hair for luncheon, and put the 
thought away from her resolutely. Katie thought of Dante’s 
nameless sinner who made “the great refusal.” Shei had 
lost perhaps the one great opportunity of her life. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Loud Erradeen retired>,^very quietly, as became a man 
defeated. Though Katie heard his retiring steps, he hardly 
did so himself, as he came down the broad softly carpeted 
staircase. There was a sound of voices and of movement in 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


359 


the great dining-room, where a liveried army were preparing 
the table for one of the great luncheons, under the orders of 
the too discreet and miderstanding Sanderson, but nobody 
about to see the exit of the rejected suitor, wno came out 
into the sunshine with a sort of dim recognition of the scene- 
ry of Katie’s boudoir ; but the hills did not seem so near as 
they were in that large- windowed and shining place. Failure 
has always a subduing effect upon the mind even when suc- 
cess was scarcely desired ; and Walter came out of the great 
house with the sense of being cut off from possibilities that 
seemed very near, almost certain, that morning. This sub- 
duing influence was the first that occupied his mind as he 
came out, feeling as if he were stealing away from the scene 
of what had been far from a triumph. Perhaps he was a 
little ashamed of his own certainty ; but at all events he w^as 
subdued and silent, refraining almost from thought. He 
had got securely out of the immediate neighborhood, and 
was safe from the risk of meeting any one belonging to 
it, and being questioned where he had been, before he began 
to feel the softening of relief, and a grateful sense of freedom. 
Then his heart recurred with a bound to the former situation. 
Expedients or compromises of any kind were no more to be 
thought of; the battle must be fought out on its natural 
ground. He must yield to the ignominious yoke, or he must 
conquer. Last year he had fled, and forced himself to forget, 
and lived in a fever of impulse which he could not under- 
stand, and influences which drew him like — he could not tell 
like what — mesmerism, Katie had said, and perhaps she 
was right. It might be mesmerism j or it might be only the 
action of that uncontrolled and capricious mind which made 
him do that to-day avhich he loathed to-morrow. But how- 
ever it was, the question had again become a primary one, 
without any compromise possible. He must yield, or he 
must win the battle. He put the losing first, it seemed so 
much the most likely, with a dreary sense of all the impos- 
sibilities that surrounded him. He had no standing ground 
upon which to meet his spiritual foe. Refusal, what was 
that ? It filled his life with distraction and confusion, but 
made no foundation for anything better, and afforded no 
hone of peace. Peace! The very word seemed a mockery 
to Walter. He must never know what it was. His soul (n 
he had one) would not be his own ; his impulses, hitherto 
followed so foolishly, would be impotent for everything but 
to follow the will of another. To abdicate his own judgment 
altogether, to give up that power of deciding ' for himself 
wdiich is the inheritance of the poorest, never to be able to 
help a poor neighbor, to aid a friend ; to be a mere puppet m 
the hands of another — was it possible that he, a man, was to 
give himself up, thus bound hand and foot, to a slavery 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


360 

harder than that of any negro evei^ born ? It was this that 
was impossible he cried within himself. 

And then there suddenly came, before Walter, like a 
vision set before him by the angels, a gleam of the one way 
ot escape. .When a poor wretch has fallen into a pit, a 
disused quarry, perhaps, or an old coal-pit,, or a still more 
eerie dungeon, there shines over him, far off, yet so authentic, 
a pure, clear intensity of light above, a concentrated glory 
of the day. a sort of opening of heaven in his sight. This is 
the spot of light, more beautiful than any star, which is all 
that the walls of his prison permit him to see of the common 
day, which above ground is lavished around us in such a 
prodigal way that we make no account of it. There are 
times when the common virtues of life, the common calm 
and peacefulness, take an aspect like this to the fallen soul : 
—the simple goodness which, perhaps, he has scoffed at and 
found tame and unprofitable, appearing to the spirit in 
prison like heaven itself, so serene and so secure. To think 
he himself has fallen from that, might hav^ possessed and 
dwelt in it, safe from all censure and dishonor, if he had not 
been a fool ! To think that all the penalties to which' he has 
exposed himself might never have existed at all— if he had 
not been a fool ! To think that now if some miracle would 
but raise him up to it — And then there are moments in 
which even the most vicious, the most utterly fallen, can 
feel as if no great miracle would be required, as if a little 
help, only a little would do it — when strength is subdued 
and low, when the sense of dissatisfaction is strong, and all 
the impulses of the flesh in abeyance, as happens at times. 
Walter’s mind came suddenly to tliis conviction as he walked 
and mused. A good life, a pure heart, tl#se were the things 
which would overcome— better, far better than any gain, 
than any sop given to fate ; and he felt that all his desires 
went up towards these, and that there was nothing in him 
but protested against the degradation of the past. He had, 
he said to himself, never been satisfied, never been but dis- 
gusted with the riot and so-called pleasure. While he in- 
dulged in them he had loathed them, sinning contemptuously 
with a bitter scorn of himself and 01 the indulgences which 
he professed to find sweet. Strange paradox of a soul ! which 
perceived the foulness of the ruin into which it had sunk, 
and hated it, yet sank deeper and deeper all the while. And 
nov/ how willing he was to turn his back upon it all, and 
how easy it seemed to rise with a leap to the higher level 
and be done with everything that was past ! The common 
goodness of the simple people about seemed suddenly to him 
like a paradise in which was all that was lovely. To live 
among your own, to do them good, to be loVed and honored, 
to have a history pure and of good report, nothing in it to give 
you a blush ; to love a pure and good woman, and have her 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


361 

for your companion all your life— how easy, how simple, how 
sale it was ! And what tyrant out of the unseen could rule 
a man like this, or disturb his quiet mastery of himself and 
all that belonged to him? Once upon that standing ground 
and who could assail you ? And it seemed at that moment 
so easy and so near. Everything round was wholesome, 
invigorating, clear ynth the keen purity of nature, fresh 
winds blowmg in his face, air the purest and clearest, in- 
spiring body and soul, not a lurking shade of temptation 
anywhere, everything tending to goodness, nothing to evil. 

And you think these pettifogging little virtues will de- 
liver your soul,” said some one quietly by his side. 

There were two figures walking along in the wintry sun- 
shine instead of one — that was all. The stonecutter on the 
road who had seen Lord Erradeen pass and given him a pass- 
ing greeting, rubbed his eyes when hext he paused to rest 
and looked along the road. He saw two gentlemen where 
but one had been^ though it was still so early and “ no a drap” 
had crossed his- lips. “ And a pretty man ! ” he said to him- 
self with mingled amazement and admiration. As for* Wal- 
ter, it was with an instinctive recoil that he heard the voice 
so near to him, but that not because of any supernatural sen- 
sation, though with an annoyance and impatience inexpres- 
sible that any one should be able to intrude on his privacy 
and thus fathom his thoughts. 

“ This is scarcely an honorable advantage you take of your 
powers,” he said. 

The other took no notice of this reproach. “ A good man,” 
he said, “ a good husband, a good member of society, sur- 
rounded by comfort on all sides and the approbation of the 
world. I admire the character as much as you do. Shall I 
tell you what this good man is ? He is the best rewarded of 
all the sons of men. Everything smiles upon him : he has 
the best of life. Everything he does counts in his favor. 
And you think that such a man can stand against a purpose 
like mine ? But for that he would want a stronger purpose 
than mine. Goodness,” he continued reflectively, “ is the best 
policy in the world. It never fails. Craft may fail, and skill 
and even wisdom, and the finest calculations : but the good 
always get their reward. A prize falls occasionally to the 
other qualities, but theirs is the harvest of life. To be suc; 
cessful you have only to be good. It is far the safest form of 
self-seeking, and the best.” He had fallen into a reflective 
tone, and walked along with a slight smile upon his lips, de- 
livering with a sort of abstract authority his monologue, 
while Walter, with an indescribable rage and mortification 
and confusion of all his thoughts, accompanied him like a 
schoolboy overpowered by an authority against which his 
very soul was rebel. Then the speaker turned upon his com- 
panion with a sort of benevolent cordiality, “ Be good ! ” he 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


362 

said. “ I advise it— it is the easiest course you can pursue : 
you will free yourself from by far the worst part of the evils 
common to humanity, ^^’othing is so had as the self-con- 
tempt under which I nave seen you laboring, the shame of 
vice for which you have no true instinct, only a sham appe- 
tite invented by the contradictoriness of your own mind. Be 
good ! it nays better than anything else in life.” 

Here Walter interrupted him with an exclamation of an- 
ger irrestrainable, “Stop!” he cried, “you have tortured 
me by my sins, and because I had nothing better to fall back 
upon. Will you make that odious too ? ” 

“By no means,” said the other, calmly. “You think I 
want you to be miserable? You are mistaken — I don’t. Seek- 
ing the advantage of my race as I do, there is nothing I more 
desire than that you should have the credit of a spotless life. 
I love reputation. Be good 1 it is the most profitable of all 
courses. I repeat that whatever may fail that never does. 
Your error is to think that it will free you from me. So far 
as concerns me it would probably do you more injury than 
good ; for it may well be that I shall have to enforce meas- 
ures which will revolt you and make you unhappy. But then 
you will have compensations. The world will oelieve that 
only bad advisers or mistaken views could move so good a 
man to appear on occasions a hard landlord, a tyranical mas- 
ter. And then your virtue will come in with expedients to 
modify the secondary effects of my plans and soften suffering. 
I do hot desire suffering. It will be in every way to our ad- 
vantage that you should smooth down and mollify and pour 
balm into the wounds which in the pursuit of a higher pur- 
pose it is necessary to make. Do not interrupt : it is the role 
I should have recommended to you, if, instead of flying out 
like a fool, you had left yourself from the first in my hands.” 

“ I think you must be the devil,” Walter said. 

“Ho; nor even of his kind; that is another mistake. I 
have no pleasure in evil any more than in suffering, unless 
my object makes it necessary. I should like you to do work. 
It was I, was it not, that set before you the miserableness of 
the life you have been leading ? which you had never faced 
before. Can you suppose th^t l should wish greatness to the 
race and misfortune to its individual members ? Certainly 
not. I wish you to do well. You could have done so, and 
lived very creditably with the girl whom you have driven into 
refusing you. Take my advice— return to her, and all will be 
well.’^ 

“ You have a right to despise me,” said Walter, quivering 
with passion aiid self-restraint. “ I did take your advice, and 
outraged her and myself. But that is over, and I shall take 
your advice no more.” 

“ You are a fool for your pains,” he said. “ ^o back now 
and you will find her mind changed. She has thought it over. 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


363 

What! you will not? I said it in your interest, it was your 
best chance. You could have taken up that good life which 
I recommend to you with all the more success had there 
been a boundless purse to begin upon. Poor it is not so easy ; 
but still you can try. Your predecessor was of that kind. 
There was nothing in him that was bad, poor fellow. He 
was an agglommeration of small virtues. Underwood was 
his one vice, a fellow who played cards with him and amused 
him. No one, you will find, has anything to say against him ; 
he was thought weak and so he was— against me. But that 
did not hinder him from being good. ’ 

“ In the namo of Heaven what do you call yburself, that 
can speak of good and evil as if they were red and blue ! ” 
the young man cried. Passion cannot keep always at a 
climax. Walter’s mind ranged from high indignation, rage, 
dismay, to a wonder that was almost impersonal, which 
sometimes reached the intolerable point, and burst out into 
impatient words. It seemed impossible to endure the calm 
of him, the reason of him, as he walked along the hilly 
road like any other man. 

“It is not amiss for a comparision,” he answered with a 
smile. His composure was not to be disturbed. He made 
no further explanations. While he played upon the young 
man beside him as an instrument, he himself remained 
absolutely calm. “ But these are abstractions,” he resumed, 
“ very important to you in your individual life, not so impor- 
tant to me who have larger affairs in hand. There is something 
how^ever which will have to be decided almost immediately 
about the island property. I told you that small business 
about the cotters in the glen was a bagatelle. On the whole, 
though I thought it folly at the time, 5 our action in that 
matter was serviceable. A burst of generosity has a fine 
effect. It is an example of what I have been saying. It 
throws dust in the eyes of the world. Now we can proceed 
with vigor on a larger scale.” 

“ If you mean to injure t^ie poor tenants, never ! and 
whatever you mean, no,” cried Walter, “I will not obey 
you. Claim your rights, if you have any rights, publicly.” 

“ I will not take that trouble. I will enforce them through 
my descendant.” 

“ No !• you can torture me, I am aware, but something I 
have learned since last year.” 

“ You have learned,” said his companion calmly, “ that 
your theatrical benevolence was not an unmixed good, that 
your proteges whom you kept to that barren glen would 
have been'better off had they been dislodged cruelly from 
their holes. The question in its larger forms is not to be 
settled from that primitive point of view. I allow,” he said 
v/ith a smile, “that on the whole that was well done. It 
leaves us much more free for operations now. It gives a 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


364 

good impression — a man who in spite of his kind heart feels 
compelled to carry out—” 

“You are a demon,” cried the young man stung beyond 
endurance. “You make even j ustice a matter of calculation, 
even the honor of one’s mind. A kind heart ! is that like a 
spade, an instrument in your hands ? ” 

“ The comparison is good again,” said his companion with 
a laugh; “your faculty that way is improving. But w^e 
must have no trifling about the matter in nand. The factor 
from the isles is not a fool like this fellow here, whom I 
tolerate because he has his uses too. The other will come 
to you presently, he will lay before you—” 

“ I will not hear him— once for all I refuse—” 

“ What, to receive your own servant?” said the other. 
“ Come, this is carrying things too far. You must hear, and 
see, and consent. There is no alternative, except — ” 

“ Except— if it comes to that, what can you do to me ? ” 
asked Walter, ghastly with that rending of the spirit which 
had once more begun within him, and with the host of fierce 
suggestions that surged into his mind. He felt as men feel 
when they are going mad, when the wild intolerance of all 
conditions which is the root of hisanity mounts higher and 
higher in the brain — when there is nothing that can be en- 
dured, nothing supportable, and the impulse to destroy and 
ravage, to uproot trees, and beat down mountains, to lay 
violent hands ujwn something, sweeps like a fiery blast 
across the soul. Even in madness there is always a certain 
self-restraint. He knew that it would be vain to seize the 
strong and tranquil man who stood before him, distorting 
everything in heaven and earth with his calm consistency : 
therefore in all the maddening rush of impulse that .did not 
suggest itself. “What can you do to me?” How un- 
necessary was the g[uestion ! What he could do was sensi- 
ble in every point, in the torrent of excitement that almost 
blinded, almost deafened the • miserable young man. He 
saw his enemy’s countenance as through a mist, a serene and 
almost beautiful face— looking at him with a sort of benevo- 
lent philosophical pity which quickened the flood of passion. 
His own voice was stifled in his throat, he could say no more. 
hTor could he hear for the ringing in his ears, what more his 
adversary was saying to him— something wildly incoherent 
he thought, about Prospero, Prospero ! “ Do you think I am 
Prospero to send you aches and stitches.” The words seemed 
to circle about him in the air, half mocking, half folly. 
What had that to do with it? He walked along mechani- 
cally, rapt in an atmosphere of his own, beating the air like 
a drowning man. 

How long this horror lasted he could never tell. While 
still those incomprehensible syllables were waving about 
him, another voice suddenly made itself heard, a touch came 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


365 

upon his arm. He gave a violent start, recoiling from the 
touch, not knowing what it was. By degrees, however, as 
the giddiness w^ent off. he began to see again, to perceive 
slowly coming into sight those mountains that had formed 
the background in Katie’s room, and to hear the soft wash 
of the waters upon the beach. He found himself standing 
close to the loch, far below the road upon which he had been 
walking. Had he rushed down to throw himself into the 
water, and thus end the horrible conflict ? He could never 
tell. Or whether it was some angel that had arrested 
the terrible impulse. When the mist dispersed from 
his eyes he saw this angel in -a red shirt standing close 
to him, looking at him v/ith eyes that peered out beneath 
the contraction of a i:)air of shaggy, sandy eyebrows, from 


an honost freckled face. “ My lord ! you’ll mayl>e no have 
seen Miss Oona ? ” Hamish said. And W alter heard him- 
self burst into a wild laugh that seemed to fllled the whole 
silent world with echoes. He caught hold of the boatman’s 
arm with a grasp that made even Hamish shrink. “ Who 
sent you here ? ” he cried ; “ who sent you here V Do you 
come from God ? ” He did not know v/hat^he said. 

‘'My lord! you mustna take that name in vain. I’m 
thinking the Almighty has a hand in maist things, and may- 
be it was just straight from Him. I’ve come, though I had 
no suspicion o’ that,” Hamish said. He thought for the first 
moment it was a madman with whom he had to do. W^alter 
had appeared with a Vush down the steep bank, falling like 
some one out of the skies, scattering the pebbles on the bank, 
and Hamish had employed Oona’s name in the stress of the 
moment as something to conjure with. He was deeply 
alarmed still as he felt the quiver in the young mai.’s frame, 
w'iiich communicated itself to Hamish’s sturdy arm. Mad- 
ness frightens the most stout-hearted. Hamish was brave 
enough, as brave as a Highlander need be, but he was 
half alarmed for himself, and much more for Oona, who 
might appear at any moment, “I’ll just be waiting about 
and notliing particular to do,” he said in a soothing tone ; 
“if ye’ll get into the boat, my lord. I’ll just put your lord- 
ship hame. Ka, it’s nae trouble hae trouble. Hamish did 
not like the situation; but he would rather have rowed 
twenty maniacs than put Oona within reach of any risk, 
lie took Lord Erradeen by the elbow and directed him 
towards the boat, repeated the kindly invitation of his coun- 
try— “ Come away, just come away ; I’ve naethtug particular 
to do, and it will just be a pleasure.” 

“Hamish,” said Walter, “you think I am out of my mind, 
but you are mistaken, my good fellow. I think you have 
saved my life, and I will not forget it. What was that you 
said about Miss Oona ? ” 

Hamish looked earnestly into the young man’s face. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


366 

“My lord,” he began with hesitation, “you see— if a 
young gentleman is a thocht out of the way, and just maybe 
excited about something and no altogether his ain man — 
what’s that to the like of me ? Never a hair o’ hairm would 
that do to Hamish. But when it’s a leddy, and young and 
real tender-hearted ! We maun aye think of them, my lord, 
and spare them— the weemen. No, it’s what we dinna do— 
they have the warst in a general way to bear. But atween 
you and me, my lord, that though you’re far my shuperior, 
are just man and man ” 

“It is you that are my superior, Hamish,” said Lord 
Erradeen ; “ but look at me now and say if you think I am 
mad. You have saved me. I am fit to speak to her now. 
Do you think I would harm her ? Not for anything in the 
world.” 

“No if you were — yoursel’ — Lord Err adeem.” 

“ But I am— myself . And the moment has come when I 
must know. Take my hand, Hamish ; look at me. Do you 
think I am not to be trusted with Oona ? ” 

“My lord, to make Hamish your judge, what’s that but 
daft too ? And what right have ye to call my young leddy 
by her name ? You’re no a drap’s blood to them, nor even a 
great friend.” 

Oona’s faithful guardian stood lowering his brows upon 
the young lord with a mingled sense of the superiority of 
his office, and of disapproval, almost contemptuous, of . the 
madman who had given it to him. That he should make 
Hamish the judge was mad indeed. And yet Hamish was 
the judge, standing bravely on his right to defend his mis- 
tress. They stood looking at each other, the boatman hold- 
ing his shaggy head high, reading the other’s face with the 
keenest scrutiny. But just then there came a soft sound 
into the air, a call from tbe bank, clear, with that tone, not 
loud but penetrating, which mountaineers use everywhere. 

“ Are you there, Hamish? ” Oona cried. 


CHAPTER XL. 

Oona’s mind had been much disturbed, yet in no painful 
way by the meeting with Mrs. Methven. The service which 
she had done to Walter’s mother, the contact with her, 
although almost in the dark, the sense of approach to another 
woman whose mind was full of anxiety, and thought for him, 
agitated her, yet seemed to heal and soften away the pain 
\\diich other encounters had given her. It gave her pleasure 
to think of the half-seen face, made softer by the twilight, 
and of the tremor of expectation and anxiety that had been 
in it. There was somehow in this a kind of excuse to herself 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


367 

for her involuntary preoccupation with all thar concerned 
him. She had felt that there was an unspoken sympathy 
between her and the stranger, and that it was something 
more than chance which brought them together. As the 
boat pushed off into the loch, and she felt that she had left 
the mother to a certain happiness in her son, her heart beat 
with a subdued excitement. She felt with them both, 
divining the soul of the mother who went to him with trem- 
. bling, not approving perhaps, not fully trusting, but loving 
and of the son who was at fault, who had not shown her the 
tenderness which her love merited in return. The sense of 
that union so incomplete in fact, and so close in nature, filled 
Oona with emotion. As the boat glided along the glittering 
pathway of the lake between the reflected banks, her mind 
Avas full of the two who had gone away together arm in arm 
into the soft darkness. How mysterious was that twilight 
world, the eye incapable in the dimness of perceiving 
which was the substance and Arhich the shadoAV of those 
floating AV'oods and islands! Sometimes the boat would 
glide into the tangled reflections of the trees, sometimes 
strike through what seemed a headland, a wall of rock, a 
long projecting promontory in this little Avorld of Avater, 
Avhere nothing was as it seemed. But it Avas not lialf so 
mysterious as life. It Avas but lately that this aspect of ex- 
istence had struck the healthful soul of the Highland girl. 
Till the last year all had been open and SAveet as the day 
about her Avays and thoughts. If she had any secrets at all 
they had been those which even the angels guard between 
themselves and God, those sacred enthusiasms for the one 
Love that is above all ; those aspirations towards the infinite 
which are the higher breath of gentle souls ; or perhaps a 
visionary opening into the romance of life in its mesent form, 
Avhich Avas scarcely less Ausionary and pure. But nothing 
else, nothing more Avorldly, nothing that her namesake, 
“heavenly Una Avith her milkwhite lamb,” need haA^e 
hesitated to avoAv. But since then Oona had gone far, and 
wandered AAude in a shadowy world which she shared with 
no one, and in Avhich there were mystic forces beyond her 
fathoming, influences which caught the wanderer all un- 
witting, and drew her hither and thither unawares, against 
her will. She was no longer the princess and sovereign of 
life as she had been in the earlier portion of it, but rather its 
subject or possible victim, moved by powers Avhich she could 
not understand nor resist, and which overcame her before 
she Avas aAvare of their existence. She thought of all this as 
her boat made its way, propelled by the long, strong strokes 
of Hamish, amid the shadows ; but not angrily, not miser- 
ably as she had sometimes done, with a sadness which (if it 
AA^as sadness at all) Avas sweet, and a secret exhilaration for 
^Aiiich she could not account. The mother seemed somehoAV 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


368 

to step into the visionary conflict which was going on, a 

half-seen, unlinown, powefful champion on the side of 

Was it on the side of Oona ? She shrank a little from that 
identification, and said to herself, on the side of good. For 
that there was a struggle going on between good and evil, 
which in some mysterious way centred in Lord Erradeen, 
she was mysteriously aware, she could not tell how. 

“Yon young lord will be the better of his mother,” Ha- 
mish was saying, his voice coming to her vaguely, running on . 
without any thought of reply, mingled with the larger sound 
of the oars upon the rowlocks, the long sweep of them 
through the loch, the gurgle and tinkle of the water as the 
boat cut through. Hamish was faintly visible and even re- 
tained till it grew quite dark some trace of color in his favo- 
rite garment. “ Hedl be the better of his mother,” he said ; 

“ there will aye be a want wdien there’s no a leddy in the 
house. Weeman servants are no to lippen to. A young man 
when he has not a wife, he will be muckle the better for his 
mother.” 

Oona heard the words vaguely like a chant amid all those 
sounds of the loch which w^ere the music and accompaniment 
of her own being. She ran up the slope when they landed, 
and burst into the little drawing-room which was so bright 
after the darkness of the evening world, with a pleasure in 
her little adventure, and in having something to tell which 
is only known in the deep recesses, the Unbroken quiet of 
rural life, Mrs. Forrester was just beginning, as she herself 
said, to “weary” for Oona’s return. She had put down her 
knitting and taken a book. Again she had put aside her 
book and taken the knitting. Oona was late. Oona meant 
the world and life to the solitary lady on the crest of the isle. 
The house, the little retired nest amid the trees, was full and 
cheerful when she was there, and though Mysie and the cook, 

“ ben the house,” gave now and then a sign of life, yet noth- 
ing was complete until the sound of the boat drawn up on 
the shingle, the unshipping of the oars, the light firm foot on 
the path, followed by the heavier tread, scattering the grav- 
el, of Hamish, gave token that all the little population were 
gathered within the circle of their rocks and waters. Then 
Mrs. Forester brightened and turned her face tow^ards the 
door with cheerful expectation : for it became a little too cold 
now to go down to the beach to meet the boat, even with the 
fur cloak upon her shoulders, which had been her wont on 
summer nights, and even on wintry days. 

“ His mother, poor young man ! Dear me, that is very in- 
teresting, Oona. I was not , sure he had a mother. That’s 
good news : for I always took an interest in Lord Erradeen, 
like one of our own boys. Indeed, you know, Oona, I always 
thought him like Rob, though their complexions are diffeir 
ent. Dear me ! I am very glad you were on the spot, Oona, 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


369 

and able to show her a little civility. But he should have 
been there, oh ! he should have been there, to meet her. If 
any of the boys were to do that to me, I would not know 
what to think— to leave me to the civility of any jjerson that 
might be passing. Oh, fie ! no, I would not know what to 
think.” 

“ I know what you would think,” said Oona, “ that there 
must have been some mistake, that they did not know the 
hour of the train, or did not know which train, or that they 
had been too late of starting, or— something. You would be 
sure to find a good reason, mamma.” 

“ Well, that’s true, Oona ; no doubt it would be somethmg 
of that kind, for it is impossible that a nice lad O-nd Lord 
Erradeen was always that) would show himself neglectful of 
his mother. Poor lady ! and she would be tired after her 
journey. I am very glad that you were there to show her a 
little attention. She will perhaps think, as so many of those 
English do, that we’re cold and distant in the north. My 
dear, you can just rmg for the tea : and we’ll go and call 
upon her to-morrow, Oona, Well, perhaps not to-morrow ; 
but wait till she is well rested. We’ll go on Thursday, and 
you can just mention it about, wherever you are to-morrow, 
that everybody may know. It is such a fine thing for a young 
man to have his mother with him (when he has not a wife), 
that we must give her a warm welcome, poor lady,” Mrs. 
Forrester said. She had no reason to call Mrs. Methven poor, 
but* did it as a child does, with a meaning of kindness. She 
was in fact much pleased and excited by the news. It seemed 
to throw a gleam of possible comfort over the head' of the 
loch. “ The late lord had no women about him,” she said to 
herself after Oona had left the room. She had quite for- 

f otten that she was beginning to “ weary.” “ Did you hear, 
lysie,” she went on when “ the tea ” appeared with all its 
wealth of scones, “that Lord Erradeen was expecting his 
mother? I am almost as glad to hear it as if one of our own 
boys had come home.” 

“ It is a real good thing for the young lord, mem,” said 
Mysie ; “ and no doubt you’ll be going to see her, being such 
near neighbors, and my lord such great friends with the 
isle.” • . 

“ I would not say very great friends; oh no,” said Mrs. 
Forrester, deprecatory, but with a smile of pleasure on her 
face. “ There is little to tempt a young gentleman here. But 
no doubt we will call as soon as she is rested— Miss Oona 
and me.” 

This formed the staple of their conversation all the even- 
ing, and made the little room cheerful with a sentiment of 
expectation. 

“ And what kind of a person did you find her, Oona ? 
And do you think she will be a pleasant neighbor ? And lie 


370 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


was at the waterside to meet her, when he saw the boat ? 
And was he kind ? and did he show a right feeling? ” 

These questions Mrs. Forrester asked over and over again. 
She put herself in the place of the mother who had arrived 
so unexpectedly without any one to meet her. 

“ And you will be sure to mention it, whoever you see to- 
morrow,” she repeated several times, “that she may see we 
have all a regard for him. I know by myself that is the first 
thing you think of,” Mrs. Forrester added, with a pleasant 
smile. “ The boys ” were everything they ought to be. There 
were no eccentricities, nothing out of the way about them to 
make public opinion doubtful. Wherever thej^ went their 
mother, pleased, but not surprised, heard everything that was 
pleasant of them. She “ knew by herself ” that this was what 
Walter’s mother would want to hear. 

And Oona “ mentioned it ” to the Ellermore Campbells, 
with whom she had some engagement next morning, and 
where she met Miss Herbert from the Lodge. Julia was al- 
ready popular with her nearest neighbors, and had an atten- 
dant at her side in the shape of a friend invited by Sir 
Thomas as an ardent sportsman, but of whom Julia had taken 
command from his first appearance. She w&s in high spirits, 
finding everything going well with her, and slightly on her 
balance with the opening of new prosperity. She threw her- 
self into the discussion with all the certainty of an old ac- 
quaintance. 

“ I don’t understand why you should be so pleased,” said 
Julia. “ Are you pleased ? or is it only a make-believe ? Oh, 
no, dear Oona ; I do not suppose you are’ so naughty as that. 
You never were naughty in your life — was she ? Never tore 
her pinafore, or dirtied her frock ? It is pretty of you, all you 
girls, to take an interest in Walter’s mother ; but for my part 
I like young men best without their mothers,” Miss Herbert 
said, with a laugh, and a glance towards the attendant squire, 
who said to himself that here was a girl above all pretence, 
who knew better than to attempt to throw dust m the eyes 
of wise men like himself. 

Some of the Ellermore girls laughed, for there is nothing 
that girls and boys are more afraid of than this reputation 
of liever having dirtied their pinafores ; while their mother, 
with the easy convictien of a woman so full of sons and 
daughters that she is glad, whenever she can, to shirk her 
responsibilities, said,— 

Well, that is true enough : a young man should not be 
encumbered with an old woman ; and if I were Methven — ” 

“ But, thank Heaven, you are not at all like Mrs. Meth- 
ven,” said Julia. “She is always after that unfortunate 
boy. It did not matter where he went, he was never free 
of her. Sitting up for him, fancy ! making him give her an 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


371 

account of everything. He had to count up how many times 
he came to see me.” 

“ W^ich perhaps would be difficult,” some one said. 

Julia laughed— that laugh of triumph which disturbs 
feminine nerves. 

“ He did come pretty often,” she said, “ poor fellow. Oh, 
most innocently! to get me to play his accompaniments. 
Hon t you know he sings ? Oh, yes, very tolerably ; if he 
would but open his mouth, I used to tell him ; biit some 
people like to he scolded, I think.” 

By you,” said the attendant in an undertone. 

Julia gave him a look which repaid him. 

“ I always had to take his part. Poor Walter ! ” she said 
with a sigh. “And then when I had him by myself I scolded 
him. Isn’t that the right way ? I used to get into great 
trouble about that boy,” she added. “ When one has known 

a person all one’s life one can’t help taking an interest 

And Jie was so mismanaged in his youth.” 

“ Here is a Daniel come to judgment,” said Jeanie Camp- 
bell: “ so much older and so much wiser than the rest of us. 
Loid Erradeen must be years older than you are. Let us 
call, mother, all the same, and see what sort of a dragon she 
is.” 

“ I shall call, of course,” the mother said ; “ and I don’t 
want to hear anything about dragons : I am one too, I sup- 
pose. Thank you, Oona, for telling nie. I should not like to 
be wanting in politeness. Your mother will be going to- 
morrow, I shouldn’t wonder ? W ell, we shall go the next 
day, girls. Erradeen marches with Ellermore, and I know 
your father wishes to pay every respect,” 

“ I suppose when you’re a lord,” said Tom, who was very 
far down in the family, and of no account, “ you caii go upoii 
a rule of your own ; but it would be far greater fun for Erra- 
deen if he would mix himself up more with other people. 
Did anybody ever find out who that fellow was that was 
staying with him ? Braithwaite thought he must be some- 
thing very fine indeed — a foreign prince, or that sort. He 
said such a fellow couldn’t be. English without being well 
known. It seems he knew everybody, and everything you 
could think of. A tremendous swell, according to Braith- 
waite. Oona, who was he ? you ought to know.” 

At this all eyes turned to Oona, who grew red in spite of 
herself. 

“ I have no way of knowing,” she said. “ I met such a 
person once— near the old castle; but it was when Lord 
Erradeen was away.” 

“I am not superstitious,” said Mrs. Campbell, “ but there 
are people seen about that old castle that— make your blood 
run cold. ^lo, I never saw anything myself ; but your father 
says ” * 


372 


THE WIZARD^S SON. 


“My father never met this fellow,” cried Tom. “He 
wasn’t a fellow to make any mistake about. Neither old nor . 
young— oh, yes, oldish : between forty and fifty ; as straight 
as a rod, with eyes that go through and through you ; and a 
voice— I thmk Erradeen himself funks him. Yes, I do. He 
turned quite vdiite when he heard his voice.” 

“ There are all kinds of strange stories about that old cas- 
tle,” said one of the Campbell sisters in an explanatory tone, 
addressing Julia. “ You must not be astonished if you hear 
of unearthly lights, and some dreadful ordeal the heir has to 
go through, and ghosts of every description.” 

“ I wish, Jeanie,” said Tom, “ when a fellow asks a ques- 
tion, that you would not break in with your nonsense. Who 
is talking of ghosts ? I am asking who a fellow was— a very 
fine gentleman, I can tell you : something you don’t see the 

like of often ” The young man was much offended by his 

sister’s profanity. He went to the door with Oona, fuming. 
“ These girls never understand,” he said ; “ they make a joke 
of everything. This was one of the grandest fellows I ever 
saw— and then they come in with their rubbish about 
ghosts ! ” 

“Never mind,” Oona said, giving him her hand. Tlie 
conversation somehow had been more than she herself could 
bear, and she had come away with a sense of perplexity and 
feebleness. Tom, who was hot and indignant, was more in 
sympathy with her than the others who talked about ghosts, 
which made her angry she could scarcely tell why. 

“ Let me walk with you,” said Julia Herbert, following. 
“ I have sent Major Antrobus to look after the carriage. He 
is a friend of my cousin Sir Thomas, and supposed to be a 

g reat sportsman, but not so devoted to slaughter as was 
oped. Instead.of slaughtering, he is slaughtered Lady Her- 
bert says. I am’ sure I don’t know by whom. Do let me 
walk with you a little way. It is so nice to be with you.” 
Julia looked into Oona’s face with something of the ingratia- 
ting air which she assumed to her victims of the other sex. 

“Dear Miss Forrester ” and then she stopped with a 

laugh. “ I don’t dare to call you by your Christian name.” 

'Mt must be I then that am the dragon, though I did not 
know it,” Oona said ; but she did not eisk to be called by her 
Christian name. 

“ I see— you are angry with me for what I said of Mrs. 
Methven. It is quite true, however; that is the kind of 
woman she is. But I don’t excuse Walter, for all that. He 
was very wicked to her. Ever since he was a boy at school 
he has been nasty to his mother. Everybody says it is her 
own fault, but still it was not nice of him, do you think ? 
Oh, I think him very nice, in many ways. I have known 
him so long. He has always been most agreeable to me — 
soitietimes too agreeable,” said Julia with a smile, pausing. 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


373 

dwelling upon the recollection. “ But his mother and he 
never got on. Sometimes those that are very nicest out of 
doors are rather disagreeable at home. Haven’t you seen 
that? Oh, I have, a hundred times. Of course the mother 
is sure to be to blame. She ought to have made a cheerful 
home for him, you know, and asked yomig people, and cheer- 
ful people, instead of a set of fogies. But she never would do 
that. She expected him to put up with her old-fashioned 
way.” * 

Oona made no reply. She was disturbed in the ideal that 
had been rising within her— an ideal not all made up of sun- 
shine and virtue, but where at least the darker shades were 
of a; more elevated description than pettjr disobediences on 
one hand and exactions on the other. Life becomes mean 
and -small when dragged down to this prosaic level, which 
was the natural level in Julia’s mind, not pitiful and debas- 
ing, as it appeared to Oona. As there was no response to 
what she had said, Julia resumed, putting her hand with a 
great show of affection within Oona’s arm. 

“I want you to let me be your friend,” she said, “and I 
don’t want you to be deceived. I fear you think too well of 
people ; and when you hear anythii^ against them, then you 
reel displeased. Oh, yes, I know. You are not pleased with 
me for telling the truth about the Methvens.” 

“ I wonder rather,” said Oona, somewhat coldly, “ that 
being so much a friend of Lord Erradeen you should — ^betray 
him ; for we should never have known this without you.” 

“ Oh, betray him ; what hard words ! ” cried Julia, making 
believe to shrink and hide her face. “ I would not betray 
him for worlds, poor dear Walter, if I had a secret of his. 
But this is no secret at all,” she added, with a laugh ; “ every- 
body knows they never got on. And between ourselves, 
Walter has been a sad bad boy. Oh, yes, there is no doubt 
about it. I know more of the W'orld than a gentle creature 
like you, and I know that no man is very good. Oh, don’t 
say a word, for you don’t understand. There are none of 
them very good. What goes on when they are knocking 
about the world— we don’t know what it is: but it is no 
good. Everybody that knows human nature knows tliat. 
But Walter 'has gone further, you know, than the ordinary. 
Oh, he has been a bad boy ! He took u]i with Captain Len- 
der wood before he knew anything about Kinloch Hoiiran, 
while he was not much more than a boy ; and everybody 
knows what Captain Underwood is. He has gambled and 
betted, and done a great many still more dreadful things. 
And poor Mrs. Methven scolded and cried and nagged ; and 
that has made everything worse.” 

Oona’s countenance changed very much during this, con- 
versation. It flushed and paled, and. grew stern with in- 
dignation, and quivered with pity. It seemed to her that 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


374 

all that was said must he true : it had not the air of an in- 
vention, She asked, with a trembling voice, “ If this is so, 

how is it that you still care for him ? still ” she would 

have said— pursue him ; but^Oona’s womanly instincts were 
too strong for this, and she faltered and paused, and said, 
feebly, “ still— keep him in your thoughts 

“ Oh, we must not be too hard, you know,” said Julia, 
smiling; “a man must sow his wild oats. Oh, I should 
myself had I been a man. I should not have been content 
with your humdrum life. I should have stormed all over 
the place and had a taste of everything. Don’t you think it 
is better for them when they have been downright bad ? I 
do; it makes them more humble. They know, if you came 
to inquire into them, there would not be a word to say for 
them. I think it is a good thing for my part ; I don’t mind. 
I am not afraid of it. But still it must be confessed that 
Walter has been, oh ! very bad! and unkind to his mother ; 
not what people call a good son. And what is the use of her 
coming here ? She is coming only to spoil sport, to poke her 
nose into everything. I have no patience with that kind of 
woman. .Now I can see in your face you are quite shocked 
with me. You think it is I who am bad. But you know I 
have taken a great fancy to you, and I want you to know.” 

“ I have no wish to Know,” said Oona. She had groum 
very pale— vdth the feeling of having been out in a storm 
and exposed to the beating of remorseless rain, the fierce 
hail that sometimes sweeps the hills. She heard Julia’s 
laugh ringing through like something fiendish in the midst 
of her suffering. She was glad to escape, though beaten 
down and penetrated by the bitter storm. The silence was 
grateful to her, and to feel herself alone. She scarcely 
doubted that it was all true. There was something in Miss 
Herbert’s tone which brought conviction with it ; the levity 
and indulgence were abhorrent to Oona, but they sounded 
true. Julia pressed her hand as she turned back, saying 
something about Major Antrobus and the carriage, and 
with a laugh at Oona’s startled looks, “ Don’t look so pale ; 
you are too sensitive. It is nothing more than all of them 
do. Good-by, dear,” Julia said". She bent forward with a 
half offer of a kiss, from which Oona shrank ; and then went 
away laughing, calling out, “People will think you have 
seen one of those ghosts.” 

A ghost ! Oona went upon her way, silent, aching in 
heart and spirit. What was a ghost, as they said, in com- 
parison? No ghost but must &iow secrets that would at 
the least make levity and irreverence impossible. Nothing 
but a human voice could mock and jibe at that horror and 
mystery of evil before which Oona’s spirit trembled. She 
had walked some way alone upon the daylight road, with 
the wholesome wind blowing in her face, and the calm of 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


375 

nature restoring her to composure, but not relieving the 
ache in her heart, before she came to the edge of the bank, 
and called in her clear voice to Hamish in the boat. 


CHAPTER XLI. 

“ Lord Erradeen ! ” His appearance was so unexpected, 
so curiously appropriate and inappropriate, that Oona felt as 
if she must be under hallucination, and was beholding an 
incarnation of her own thoughts instead of an actual man. 

And Walter was himself at so high a strain of excitement 
that the agitation of her surprise seemed natural to him. It 
scarcely seemed possible that everybody around, and speci- 
ally that she, did not know the crisis at which he stood. He 
took the hand which she uistinctively put forward, into both 
his, and held fast by it as if it had been an anchor of sal- 
vation. 

“ I am a fugitive,” he said. “ Will you receive me, will 
you take me with you ? Have pity upon me, for you are my 
last hope.” 

“ Lord Erradeen— has anything— happened ? What— have 
you done ? ” 

She trembled, standing by him, gazing in his face, not 
withdrawing her hand, yet not giving it. lost in wonder ; yet 
having come to feel that somethmg he liad done, some guilt 
of his, must be the cause. 

“ I have done — I will tell you everything. I wish to tell 
you everything : let me come with you, Oona.” 

All this time Hamish, standing behind Walter, was 
making signs to his young mistress, which seemed to no pur- 

E ose but to increase her perplexity. Hamish shook his shaggy 
ead and his eyebrows worked up and down. He gesticulated 
with his arm pointing along the loch. Finally he stepped 
forward with a sort of desperation. 

“ If you refuse to hear me,” he said, “I have no other help 
to turn to. I know I have no right to use such an argument 
and ypt if you knew— I will urge no more. It is death or 
life— but it is in your hands.” 

Oona’s eyes searched into his very soul. 

“ What can I do ? ” she said, wondering. “ What power 
have I ? How can I tell if it is— true— ” she faltered and 
begged his pardon hastily when she had said that w^ord. “ I 
mean- 1 do not mean— ” she said confusedly. -“But oh, 

what can I do ? it is not possible that I ” 

It is cruel to have the ourden put upon you of another’s 
fate. Sometimes that- is done to a woman lightly in the mo- 
ment of disappointment by a mortified lover. Was this the 
sort of threat he meant, or was it perhaps— true ? Oona, 


THE WIZAJ^D'S SON. 


376 

who had no guile, was shaken to the very soul by that doubt 
Better to risk an affront in her own person than perhaps to 
fail of an occasion in which sincere help was wantecf and 
could be given. She had not taken her eyes from him, but 
searched his face with a profound uncertainty and eagerness. 
At last, with the sigh of relief which accompanies a decision 
she said to Hamish, — 

“ Push off the boat. Lord Erradeen will help me in,” 
with something peremptory in her tone against which her 
faithful servant could make no further protest. 

Hamish proceeded accordingly to push off the boat into 
the water, and presently they were afloat, steering out for 
the centre of the loch. They were at some distance from the 
isle on the other side of the low, green island with its little 
fringe of trees, so different from the rocky and crested isles 
about, which is known on Loch Houran as the Isle of Rest. 
The low wall round about the scattered tombs, the scanty 
ruin of its little chapel, were all that broke the soft green- 
ness of those low slopes. There was nothing like it all 
around in its solemn vacancy and stillness, and nothing 
could be more unlike that chill and pathetic calm than the 
freight of life which approached it in Oona’s boat; she her- 
self full of tremulous visionary excitement — the young man 
in his passion and desperation: even the watchful attendant 
who never took his eyes from Lord Erradeen, and rowed on 
with all his senses on the alert, ready to throw himself upon 
the supposed maniac at a moment’s notice, or without it, did 
the occasion require. There was a pause when they found 
themselves separated by a widening interval of water from 
the shore, where at any moment a chance passenger might 
have disturbed their interview. Here no one could disturb 
them. Walter placed himself in front of Hamish facing 
Oona ; but perhaps the very attitude, the freedom and isola^ 
tion in which he found himself with her, closed his lips. 
For a minute he sat gazing at her, and did not speak. 

“ You wished — to say something to me, Lord Erradeen ?” 

It was she who recalled to him his purpose, with a deli- 
cate flush coloring the paleness of her face, half in shame 
that after all she had to interfere to bring the confession 
forth. 

“ So much,” he said, “ so much that I scarcely know where 
to begin.” And then he added, “ I feel safe with you near 
me. Do you know wdiat it means to feel safe ? But you 
never were in deadly danger. How could you be ? ” 

“ Lord Erradeen, do not mystify me with these strange 
sayings,” she cried. “ Do they mean anything. What has 
happened to you ? or is it only— is it nothing but ” 

“ A pretence, do you think, to get myself a hearing— to 
beguile you into a little interest ? That might have been 
Blit it is more serious, far more serious. 1 told you it was 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


377 

life or death.” He paused for a moment and then resumed. 
“ Do you remember last year, when you saved me ? ” 

I remember— last year,” she said with an unsteady voice, 
feeling the flush grow hotter and hotter on her cheek, for 
she did not desire to be reminded of that self -surrender, 
that strange merging of her being in another’s, which was 
her secret, of which she had been aware, but no one else. 
“ I never understood it,” she added, with one meaning for 
herself and one for him. The hidden sense wa's to her more 
important than the other. “It has always been— a mys- 
tery ” 

“ It was the beginning of the struggle,” he said. “ I came 
here, you know— don’t you know ?— out of poverty to take 
possession of my kingdom— that was what I thought. I 
found myself instead at the beginning of a dreary battle. I 
was not flt for it, to begin with. Do you remember the old 
knights had to prepare themselves for their chivalry with 
fasting, and watching of arms, and all that— folly ” A 

f leam of self-derision went over his face, and yet it was 
eadly serio’hs underneath. 

“ It was no folly,” she said. 

“ Oh, do you think I don’t know that ? The devil laughs 
in me, now and then, bpt I don’t mean it. Oona — let me call 
you Oona, now, if never again— I had neither w^atched nor 
prayed ” 

He made a pause, looking at her pitifully ; and she, drawn 
she knew not how, answered, with tears in her eyes, “ I have 

heard that you had strayed ” 

“ That means accidentally^ innocently,” he said. “ It was 
not so. I had thought only of myself ; when I was caught in 
the grip of a will stronger than mine, unprepared. There was 
set before me — no, not good and evil as m the books, but sub- 
jection to one— who cared neither for good nor evil. I was 
bidden to give up my own will. I, who had cared for noth- 
ing else ; to give up even such good as was in me. I was not 
cruel. I cared nothing about worldlj^ advantages ; but these 
were henceforward to be the rule of my life— pleasant, was it 
not ? ” he said with a laugh, “ to a man who expected to be 
the master — of everything round.” 

At the sound of his laugh, which was harsh and wild, 
Hamish, raising himself, so as to catch the eye of his mistress 
gave her a questioning, anxious look. Oona was very pale, 
but she made an impatient gesture with her hand to her hum- 
ble guardian. She was not herself at ease ; an agonizing doubt 
lest Walter’s mind should have given way had taken posses- 
sion of her. She answered him as calmly as she could, but 
wdth a tremor in her voice, “Who could ask that. Lord 
Erradeen ? Oh no, no— you have been deceived.” 

“You ask me who? you who gave me your hand— your 
hand that was like snow—that had never done but kindness 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


378 

all your life — and saved me — so that I defied him. And you 
ask me who ? ” 

He put out his hand as he spoke and touched hers as it lay 
in her lap. His face was full of emotion, working and quiv- 
ering. “ Give it to me, Oona ! — will you give it to me ? I 
am not worthy that you should touch me. It has been said 
to me that you would turn from me — ah, with disgust ! — if 
you kneio. And I want you to know everything. For you 
gave it then without pausing to think. Oona ! I am going 
to tell you everything. Give it to me,” he said, holding out 
his hands one over the other to receive and, clasp hers, his 
eyes moist, his lips appealing with a quivering smile of en- 
treaty. And how may it be told what was in Oona’s heart ? 
Her whole being was moved through and through with ten- 
derness, wonder, pity. Her hand seemed to move of itself 
towards him. The impulse was upon her almost too strong 
to be resisted, to throw her arms round him, like a mother 
with a child— to identify herself with him whatever might 
follow. The womanly instinct that held her hack — that 
kept all these impulses in check and restrained the heart 
that seemed leaping out of her bosom towards this man 
whom she loved in spite of herself, and who had need of her, 
most sacred of all claims — was like a frame, of iron round 
her, against which she struggled, hut from which she could 
not get free. Tears filled her eyes — she clasped her hands 
together in an involuntary appeal. “ What can I do ? What 
can I do ? ” she cried. 

“You shall hear all,” said he. “ I have tried everything 
before coming back to that which I always knew was my 
only hope. I fled away after that night. Do you remember?” 
(She almost smiled at this, for she remembered far better 
than he, and the wonder and despair of it, andhiS boat going 
away oyer’ the silent loch, and his face eager to be gone, and 
she indignant, astonished, feeling that her life went with 
him ; but of all this he knew nothing.) “ I fled — thinking I 
could escape and forget. There seemed no better way. There 
was no one to help me, only to mar and waste— w'hat was all 
wasted and spoilt already. I want to tell you everything,” he 
said f altering, drooping his head, withdrawing his ey.es from* 
her, but I have not the courage — ^you would not understand 
that you could imagine could reach to a hun- 
dredth part of the evil I have known.” He covered his face 
with his hands. The bitterness of the confession he dared not 
make seemed to stifle his voice and every hope. 

And Oona’s heart ^ quivered and beat against the strong 
bondage that held it in, and her hands fluttered with longing 
to clasp him and console him. What woman can bear tb 
hear out such a confession, not to interrupt it with pardon, 
mth absolution,^ with cries to bring forth the fairest robe ? 
fehe touched his head with her hands for a moment, a 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


379 

trembling touch upon his hair, and said, “ God forgive you. 
God will forgive you,” with a voice almost choked with 
tears. 

He raised his head and looked at her with an eager cry. 
“ I want — not forgiveness. I want life,” he cried, “ life, new 
life. I want to be born again. Is not that in the Bible ? To be 


thinking of. I am not thinking of forgiv 
punishment if you please, anything !— but a new life. He 
knew man who said that,” Walter cried, raising his head. 
“ "Vv^hat use is it to me to forgive me ? I want to be born 
again.” 

When he thus delivered himself of his exceeding bitter 
cry, this woman too, like his mother, answered him with a 
shining face, with eyes swimming in tears, and brilliant with 
celestial certainty. She put out her hands to him without a 
moment’s hesitation, and grasped his and smiled. , 

“ Oh, that is all provided for ! ” she said. “ Yes, He knew! 
It is already for you — waiting — waiting. Don’t you know 
our Lord stands at the door and knocks, till you are ready to 
let Him in ? And now you are ready. There is nothing 
more.” 

He received the soft hands within his with feelings inde- 
scribable, at such a height of ‘emotion that all the lesser 
shades and degrees were lost. He twined her fingers among 
his own, clasping them with an entire appropriation. 

“ €>ona,” he said, “the house is yours, and all in it. Open 
the door to your Lord, whom I am not worthy to come near— 
and to everything that is good. It is yours to do it. Open 
the door!” 

They had forgotten Hamish v/ho sat behind, pulling his 
long, even strokes, with his anxious shaggy countenance 
fixed like that of a faithful dog upon his mistress, whom he 
had to guard. He saw the two heads draw very close to- 
gether, and the murmur of the voices. 

“ What will she be saying to him ? She will be winning 
him out of yon transport. Sdie will be puttin’ peace in his 
hairt. She has a voice that would wile the bird from the 
tree,” said Hamish to himself. “ But oh hon 1— my bonnie 
Miss Oona,” Hamish cried aloud. 

This disturbed them and made them conscious of the 
spectator, who was there with them, separate from all the 
world. Oona, with a woman’s readiness to throw her veil 
over and hide from the eye of day all that is too sacred for 
the vulgar gaze, raised her face, still quivering with tender 
and holy passion. 

“ Why do you say ‘ oh hon ! ’ There is nothing to say ‘ oh 
hon’ for, Hamish. Ho, no ; but the other way.” 

Hamish looked across the yomig lord, whose head wTvS 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


380 

bowed down still over Oona’s hands, which he held. The 
boatman gave him- a glance in which there was doubt and 
trouble, and then raised his shaggy eyebrows, and addressed 
a look of entreaty and warning to the fair inspired face that 
hovered over Walter like a protecting angel. “Ye will not 
be doing the like of that ” he said, “without thought?” 

And all the time the boat swept on over the reflections in 
the Avater, by the low shore of the Isle of Rest, where death 
had easy landing, away among the feathery islets, all tufted 
brown and crimson to the water’s edge, where nothing but 
the wild life of the woods could find footing nothing near 
them but the one anxious, humble retainer, watching over 
Oona, for whom no one in heaven or earth, save himself, en- 
tertained any fear. He quickened those long strokes in the 
excitement of his soul, but neither did Yv alter take any ac- 
count of where he was going, or Oona awake out of the ex- 
citenient of the moment to think of the descent into common 
life which was so near. Hamish only, having the entire con- 
duct of them, hastened their progress back to ordinary exist- 
ence— if perhaps there might be some aid of reason and 
common judgment (as he said to himself) there, to see that 
the man Avas in his right senses before Oona should be bound 
for life. 

There was no excitement about the isle. It lay as calm 
in the sunshine as if nothing but peace had ever passed by 
that piece of solid earth, Avith its rocks and trees, that little 
human Avorid amid the Avaters ; every jagged edge of rock, 
every red-tinted tree against, the background of tail fi#s, and 
the firs themselves in their dark motionless green, all shining 
inverted in the liquid clearness around. The two were still 
afloat, though their feet Avere on solid ground, and still 
a]3art from all the Avorld, though the Avinding way led direct 
to the little centre of common life in which Oona Avas all in 
all. But they did not immediately ascend to that gentle 
height. They paused first on the little platform, from Av^hich 
Kinloch Houran Avas the chief object. One of those flying 
shadows that make the poetry of the hills was over it for a 
moment, arrested as by some consciousness of nature, while 
they stood and gazed. There Walter stood and told to Oona 
the story of Miss Milnathort, and how she had said that two, 
sot upon all good things, would hold the secret in their hands. 
Taa'o— and here were the two. It seemed to him that every 
cloud had fled from his soul from the moment when he felt her 
hands in his, and had bidden her “open the door.” Oh. f ing 
Avide the door to the Christ Avho waits outside, the Anointed, 
the Deliverer of men : to peace and truth, that Avait upon 
Him, and mercy and kindness, and love supreme that saves 
the world ! Fling wide the doors ! Not a bolt or bar Imt 
that soft hand shall unloose them, throw them Avide, that the 
Lord may come in. Notn crevice or corner, or dark hiding- 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


381 

place of evil but shall open to the light. He said so standing 
there, holding her hand still, not only as a lover carressing, 
protecting, holds the soft hand he loves, but as a man drown- 
ing will hold by the hand held out to save him. It was both 
to Walter. He told her, and it was true, that from the day 
when she had put it into his a year ago, he had never lost 
the consciousness that in this hand was his hope. 

Oona was penetrated by all these words to the depths of 
her heart. What girl could be told that in her hands was 
the saving of one she loved without such a movement of the 
soul to the highest heroism and devotion as raises human 
nature above itself ? Her soul seemed to soar, drawing his 
with it into heights above. She. felt capable of everything — 
of the highest effort and the humblest service. That union 
of the spiritual being above his, and the human longing 
beneath, came back to her in all the joy of a permitted and 
befittmg mood. She was his to raise him above all those 
soils of life of which he was sick and weary ; and his to 
sweep away the thorns and briars out of his path j to lead 
him and to serve him, to mingle her being in his life so that 
no one henceforward should thmk of- Oona save of his 
second and helpmeet : yet so to guide his uncertain way as 
that it should henceforward follow the track of light by 
which the best of all ages has gone. Even to understand 
that office of glory and humility demands and enlight- 
enment, such as those who do not love can never attain. To 
Oona it seemed that life itself became glorious in this 
service. It raised her above all earthly things. She looked 
at him with the pity of an angel, with something of the 
tenderness of a mother, with an identification and willing- 
ness to submit which was pure, woman. All was justified to 
her — the love that she had given unsought, the service which 
she was willing and ready to give. 

He stopped before they had reached the height upon 
which stood home and the sweet and simple existence which 
embraced these mysteries without comprehending them. A 
darker shadow, a premonition of evil came over him. 

“ And yet,” he said, “ I have not told you all. I have 
something more still to say.” 


CHAPTER XLII. 

What did there remain to say ? 

He had made his confession, which, after all, was no con- 
fession, and she had stopped his mouth with pardon. His 
cry for new life had overcome every reluctance in her. Her 
delicate reserve, the instinct that restrained her, had no 


THE WIZARHS SOM. 


382 

more power after that. She had stood no longer behind any 
harrier— at that touch she had thrown her heart wide open 
and taken him within. 

“ What more ? ” she said. “ There can he no more.” 

“ Much more : and you were to hear all : not only wretch- 
ed folly into which I fled, to try if I could forget, but some- 
thing meaner, nearer something for which you will de- 

spise me. Oh, do not smile ; it is past smiling for you and. 
me — for you as well as me now, Oona. God forgive me that 
have tangled your life in mine ! ” 

“ What is it ? ” she said, giving him an open look of trust 
and confidence. “ I am not afraid.” 

He was. Far worse than the general avowal of sins 
which she did not understand was the avowal he had to 
make of something which she could understand. He per- 
ceived that it would wound her to the heart — there was no 
thought now of Oona throwing him off. She had put her 
hand into his, and was ready to pour the fresh and spotless 
stream of her life into his. It would be no more possible for 
her to separate herself, to withdraw from him, whatever 
might happen. He perceived this with a keen pang of 
remorse, for the first time entering with all his heart into 
the soul of another, and understanding what it meant. She 
could not now turn her back upon him, go aAVay from him ; 
and he was about to give her a sharp, profound, intolerable 
wound. 

“ Oona,” he said, with great humility, “ it occurred to- 
day. I cannot tell whether you will be able to see wdiy I 

did it, or how I did it. This morning ” He paused here, 

feeling that the words hung in his throat and stifled him. 
“This morning — I went— and insulted Katie Williamson, 
and asked her to marry me.” 

She had been listening with her sweet look of pity and 
tenderness — sorry, sorry to the depths of her heart, for the 
evil he had done— sorry beyond tears ; but yet ready with 
her pardon, and not afraid. At the name of Katie William- 
son there came up over her clear face' the shadow of a 
cloud— not more than the shadow. When such words as 
these are said they are not to be understood all at once. 
But they woke in her a startled curiosity— a strange sur- 
prise. 

“ This morning — it is still mornuig,” she said, bewil- 
dered ; “ and Katie ” 

“ Oona ! you do not understand.” 

“ Ko. I do not quite— understand. What is it ? This 
morning? And Katie- — ” 

“ I asked her this morning to join her land to my land 
and her money to my money : to be — my wife.” 

^ She drew her hand slowly out of his, looking at him 
with eyes that grew larger as they gazed. For some time 


THE WIZARD^S SON, 383 

she could not say a word, hut only got paler and paler, and 
looked at him. 

“ Then what place— have I ?— what am— I ? ” she said, 
slowly. Afterwards a sudden flush lighted up her face. 
“ She would not : and then you came— to me ? ” she 
said. 

A faint smile of pain came to her mouth. Walter had 
seen that look very recently before— when he told his 
mother why it was that he had sent for her. Was he 
capable of giving nothing but pain to those he loved ? If he 
had tried to explain or apologize, it is doubtful whether 
Oona’s faculties, so suddenly and strangely strained, could 
have borne it. But he said nothing. What was there to 
say ? — the fact which he had thus avowed was beyond ex- 
planation. He met her eyes for a moment, then drooped 
his head. There was nothing — nothing to be said. It was 
true. He had gone to another woman first, and then, when 
that failed, as a last resource had come to her. The anguish 
was so sharp that it brought that smile. It was incredible 
in the midst of her happiness. Her heart seemed wrung 
and crushed in some gigantic grasp. She looked at him 
with wondering, incredulous misery. 

“ You thought, then I suppose,” she said, “ that one — was 
as good as another ? ” 

“ I did not do that, Oona ; it is, perhaps, impossible that 
you should understand. I told you— I had tried— every 
expedient : not daring to come to the one and only— the 
one, the only ” 

She waved her hand as if putting this aside, and stood 
for a moment looking out vaguely upon the loch— upon the 
sheen of the water, the castle lying darkly in shadow, the 
banks stretching upward and downward in reflection. They 
had been glorified a moment since in the new union ; noAV 
they were blurred over, and conveyed no meaning. Then 
she said, drearily— 

“ My mother — will wonder why we do not come 
hi—” 

“ May I speak to her— at once ? Let me speak.” 

“ Oh no ! ” she cried. “ Say nothing— nothing ! I could 
not bear it.” 

And then he seized upon her hand, the hand she had 
taken from him, and cried out — 

“ You are not going to forsake me, Oona ! You will not 
cast me away ? ” 

“ I cannot,” she said very low, with her eyes upon the 
landscape, “ I cannot ! ” Then, turning to him, “ You have 
my word, and I have but one word : only everything is 
changed. Let us say no more of it just now. A little 
time— I must have a little time.” 

And she turned and walked before him to the house. 


3^4 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


They went in silence, not a word passing between them. 
Mysie, startled, came out to the door to ascertain who it 
could be who were preceded by the sound of footsteps only, 
not of voices. It was “no canny,” she said. And to think 
this was Miss Oona, whose cheerful voice always came home 
before her to warn the house that its pride and joy was ap- 
proaching ! Mysie, confounded, went to open the door of 
the drawing-room that her mistress might be made to share 
her uneasiness. 

“ It will just be Miss Oona, mem, and my lord,” Mysie 
said, “ but very down, as if something had happened, and 
not saying a word.” 

“ Bless me ! ” cried Mrs. Forrester. Her heart naturally 
leapt to the only source of danger that could affect her 
deeply. “ It is not a mail day, Mysie,” she said ; “there can 
be no ill news.” 

“ The Lord be thanked for that ! ” Mysie said : and then 
stood aside to give admittance to those footsteps which came 
one after the other without any talking or cheerful note of 
sound. Mrs. Forrester rose to meet them with a certain 
anxiety, although her mind was at rest on fhe subject of the 
mails. It might be something wrong at Eaglescairn: it 
might be 

“ Dear me ! what is the matter, Oona ? You are white, 
as if you had seen a ghost,” she said, with a more tangible 
reason for her alarm. 

“ I am quite well, mamma. Perhaps I may have seen a 
ghost— but nothing more,” she said with a half laugh. “ And 
nere is Lord Erradeen whom we picked up, Hamisn and I.” 

“And Lord Erradeen, you are just very whitefaced too,” 
cried Mrs. Forrester. “ Bless me, I hope you have not both 
taken a chill. That will sometimes happen when the winter 
is wearing on, and you are tempted out on a fine morning 
with not enough clothes. I have some cherry brandy in my. 
private press, and I will just give you a little to bring back 
the blood to your cheeks : and come in to the fire. Dear me, 
Oona, do not shiver like that ! and you not one that feels the 
cold. You have just taken a chill upon the water, though it 
is such a beautiful, morning. And so you have got your 
mother with you. Lord Erradeen ? ” 

“ She came yesterday. She was so fortunate as to meet— 
Miss Forrester.” 

It seemed to him a wrong against which he was ready to 
cry out to earth and heaven that he should have to call her 
by that formal name. He paused before he said it, and 
looked at her with passionate reproach in his eyes. And 
Oona saw the look, though her eyes were averted, and trem- 
bled, with what her mother took for cold. 

“ You may be sure Oona was very content to be of use : 
and I hope now you have got her you will keep her. Lord 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


385 

Erradeen. It will be fine for your bouse and the servants, 
and all, to have a lady at Auchnasheen. There has not been 
a lady since the last lord but one, who married the last of the 
Gleneel family, a person that brought a great deal of prop- 
erty into the family. I remember her very well. They said 
she was not his first love, but she was a most creditable per- 
son, and well thought upon, and kind to the poor. We were 
saying to ourselves, Oona and me, that we would go up the 
loch to-morrow and call, if you are sure Mrs. Methven is 
rested from her journey, and will like to see such near neigh- 
bors.” 

“ But, mother — ” Oona said. 

“ But what ? There is no but, that I know of. You know 
that it was all settled between us. We thought to-day she 
would be tired, and want repose rather than company. But 
by to-morrow she would be rested, and willing to see what 
like persons we are in this place. That would be very 
natural. And I am proud Oona was in the way to take her 
across the loch. People that come from flat countries where 
there is little water, they are sometimes a little timid of the 
loch, and in the dark too. But she will have got over all 
that by to-morrow, and to call will be a real pleasure. Did 
you mention, Oona, at Ellermore and other places that Mrs. 
Methven had arrived?— for everybody will be keen to see 
your mother. Lord Erradeen.” 

“It is very kind. She will rather see you than any 
one.” 

“ Hoots^” said Mrs. Forrester with a smile and a shake of 
her head, that is just flattery ; for we have very little in our 
power except good-will and kindness : but it will give me 
great pleasure to make your mother’s acquaintance, and if 
she likes mine that will be a double advantage. But you are 
not going away^ Lord Erradeen? You have this moment 
come ! and Mvsie will be reckoning upon you for luncln and 
I have no doubt a bird has been put to the fire. Well, I will 
not say a word, for Mrs. Methven’s sake, for no doubt she 
will be a little strange the first day or two. Oona, will you 
see that Ilamish is ready ? And we will have the pleasure 
of calling to-morrow,” Mrs. Forrester said, following to the 
door. Her easy smiles, the little movements of her hands, 
the fluttering of the pretty ribbons in her cap, added to the 
calm and tranquil stream of her talk so many additional de- 
tails of the softest quietude of common life. She stood and 
looked after the young pair as they went down together to 
the beach, waving her hand to them when they turned to- 
wards her, as unconscious of any disturbing influence as 
were the trees that waved their branches too. Passion had 
never been in her little composed and cheerful world. By 
and by she felt the chill of the wind, and turned and went 
back to her fireside. “Ho doubt that winter is coming now,” 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


386 

she said to herself, “ and no wonder if Oona^ poor thing, was 
just frozen with the cold on the water. I wisn she may not 
have taken a chill.” This was the greatest danger Mrs. For- 
rester anticipated, and she did not doubt that a hot drink 
when Oona went to bed would make all right. 

It was very strange to both of the young wayfarers to find 
themselves alone again in the fresh air and stillness. Since 
the moment when they had landed in an ecstasy of union, 
until this moment when they went down again to the same 
spot, years might have passed for anything they knew. They 
did not seem to have a word to say to each other. Oona was 
a step or two in advance leading the way, while behind her 
came Walter, his head drooping, his courage gone, not even 
the despair in him which had given him a wild and fiery 
energy. Despair itself seemed hopeful in comparison with 
this. He had risen into another life, come to fresh hopes, 
received beyond all expectation the help which he had 
sought for elsewhere in vain, but which here alone he could 
ever find. And yet now the soul had gone out of it all, and 
he stood bewildered, deprived of any power to say or do. All 
tlirough his other miseries there had been the thought of 
this, like a distant stronghold in which if he ever reached it 
there wouid be deliverance. If he ever reached it ! and now 
he had reached it, but too late. W as it too late ? He fol- 
lowed her helplessly, not able to think of anything he could 
say to her, though he had pleaded so eagerly, so earnestly, a 
little while ago. There comes a time after we have poured 
out our whole soul in entreaties whether to God or man, 
when exhaustion overpowers the mind, and utterance is 
taken from us, and even desire seems to fail — not that what 
we long for is less to be desired, but that every effort is ex- 
hausted and a dreary discouragement has paralyzed the 
soul. Walter felt not less, but more than ever, that in Oona 
was his every hope. But he was dumb and could say no 
more, following her with a weight upon his heart that al- 
lowed him no further possibility, no power to raise either 
voice or hand. They walked thus as in a mournful proces- 
sion following the funeral of their brief joy, half way down 
the bank. Then Oona who was foremost paused for a mo- 
ment looking out wistfully upon that familiar prospect, upon 
which she had looked all her life. The scene had changed, 
the sky had clouded over, as if in harmony with their minds ; 
only over Kinloch Houran, a watery ray of sunshine, pene- 
trating through the quickly gathering clouds, threw a weird 
light. The ruinous walls stood out red under this gleam 
a^ance of the retreating sun. It was like an indication — a 
pointing out, to the executioner of some deadly harm or 
punishment, of the victim. Oona paused, and ne behind 
her, vaguely turning as she turned, gazing at this strange 
significant light, which seemed to point out, “ This is the 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


387 

spot”— was that what was meant?— “the place to be 
destroyed.” 

It was in shadow a moment since,” Oona said, and her 
voice seemed to thrill the air that had been brooding over 
them in a heavy chill, as if under the same influence that 
made them voiceless. What did she mean ? and why should 
sne care — 

“ It has come here,” said Oona, “ between you and me 
You said you insulted Katie. I cannot think that^it was 
your meaning to— insult me.” ^ 

“ Insult— 2/oM / ” his mind was so clear of that, and his 
own meaning in respect to the other so evident to him, that 
the dead quietude of his discouragement yielded to a mo- 
mentary impatience. But how was he to make that clear ? 

JNo, I cannot think it. Whatever you meant, whether 
it was in levity, whether it was I do not believe that:^ 

“ Oona,” he cried, waking to the desperation of the posi- 
tion, “ will you give me up, after all we have said.” 

She shook her head sadly. 

“I will never now deny you what help I can give you. 
Lord Erradeen.” 

He turned from her with a cry of bitterness. 

“ Help without love is no help. Alms and pity will do 
nothing for me. It must be two— who are one.” 

She answered him with a faint laugh which was more 
bitter still ; but restrained the jest of pain which rose to 
her lips, something about three who could not be one. It 
was the impulse of keen anguish, but it would not have be- 
come a discussion that was as serious as life and death. 

“ It is all a confusion,” she said ; “ what to say or do I 
know not. It is such a thing — as could not have been fore- 
seen. Some would think it made me free, but I do not feel 
that I can ever be free.” She spoke without looking at him, 
gazing blankly out upon the landscape. “You said it was 
no smiling matter to you or me— to you and me. Perhaps,” 
she interrupted herself as if a new light had come upon her, 
“ that is the true meaning of what you say— two that are 
one ; but it is not the usual creed. Two for misery ” 

“Oh not for misery, Oona! there is no misery for me 
where you are.” 

“ Or— any other,’\she said, with a smile of unimaginable 
suffering, and ridicule^ and indignation. 

He answered nothing. What could he say to defend 
himself ? “ If you could see into my heart,” he said, after a 
time, “ you would understand. One who is in despair will 
clutch at anything. Can you imagine a man trying like a 
coward to escape the conflict, rather than facing it, and 
bringing the woman he loved into it ? ” 

“Yes,” she said, “ I can imagine that ; but not in the man 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


388 

who is me.” Then she moved awa^ towards the beach, say- 
ing, “ Hamish is waiting,” with a sigh of Weariness. 

“ Oona,” said Walter, “you will give me your hand again 
before we part ? ” 

“ What does it matter if I give it or hold it back? It is 
yours whether I will or not. You should have told me be- 
fore. I should have understood. Oh, I am ashamed, 
ashamed ! to think of all I have said to you. How could you 
betray me first before you told me ? In the same morning ! 
It is more than a woman can bear ! ” she cried. 

Perhaps this outburst of passion relieved her, for she 
turned and held out her hand to him with a smile of pain 
which was heartrending. It did not seem like this when 
we landed,” she said. 

“ And it would not seem like this, oh, Oona ! if you could 
see my heart.” 

She shook her head, looking at him all the while with 
that strange smile, and then drew away her hand and re- 
peated. “ Hamish is waiting.” Hamish in the background, 
standing up against the shining of the water, with nis oar 
in his hand, waited with his anxious eyes upon his young 
lady, not knowing how it was. He would have pitched Lord 
Erradeen into the loch, or laid him at his feet with Hi^- 
land passion, had she given him a sign. He held the boat 
for him instead to step in,, with an anxious countenance. 
Love or hate, or madness or good meanmg. Hamish could 
not make out what it was. 

“ To-morrow ! ” Walter said, “ if I can live till to-morrow 
in this suspense ” » 

She waved her hand to him, and Hamish pushed off. 
And Oona stood as in a dream, seeing over again the scene 
which had been in her mind for so long— but changed. She 
had watched him go away before, eager to be gone, carrying 
her life with him without knowing it, without desiring it ; 
he unaware of what he was doing, she watching surprised, 
bereaved of herself, innocently and unaware. How poignant 
had that parting been ! But now it was different. He gazed 
back at her now, as she stood on the beach, leaving his life 
with her, all that was in him straining towards her, gazing 
Lll they were each to the other but a speck in the distance. 
Two that were one ! Oh, not perhaps for mutual joy, not 
for the happiness that love on the surface seems to mean— 
rather for the burden, the disappointment, the shame. She 
waved her hand once more over the cold water, and then 
turned away. Till to-morrow— “ if I can live till to-morrow ” 
—as he had said. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


389 


CHAPTER XLIIL 

The rest of this day passed over Walter like a dream in 
a fever. Through a kind of hot mist full of strange reflec- 
tions, all painful, terrible, lurid with confusion and suffer- 
ing, he saw the people and things about him— his mother 
questioning him with anxious words, with still more anxi- 
ous eyes ; his servants looking at him wondering, compas- 
sionate : and now and then something would be said, which 
caught his ear and thereafter continued to return to him 
from time to time, like a straw cast into a whirlpool and 
boiling up as the bubbles went and came— something about 
seeing a doctor, something about sending for Mr. Cameron, 
with occasionally an imploring entreaty, “ Oh, my boy ! 
what ails you ? what is the matter?” from Mrs. Methven. 
These were the words that came back to his ears in a kind 
of refrain. He answered, too, somehow, he was aware, that 
there was nothing the matter with him, that he wanted no 
doctor, no counsellor, in a voice which seemed to come from 
any point of the compass rather than from his own lips. It 
was not because of the breach which had so rapidly followed 
the transport of his complete union with Oona. That, too, 
had become secondary, a detail scarcely important in the 
presence of the vague tempest which was raging within him, 
and which he felt must come to some outburst more terrible 
than anything he had yet known when he was left to him- 
self. He had come to shore, under the guidance of Hamish, 
distracted, yet scarcely unhappy, feeling that at the end, 
whatever misunderstanding there might be, he was assured 
of Oona, her companionship, her help, and, what was greatest 
of all, her love. She had not hesitated to let him see that he 
had that ; and with that must not all obstacles, however 
miserable, disappear at the last ? 

But when he landed, the misery that fell upon him was 
very different from this. He became conscious at once that 
it was the beginning of the last struggle, a conflict which 
might end in— he knew not what: death, downfall, flight, 
even shame, for aught he knew. The impulse was strong 
upon him to speed away to the hillside and deliver himself 
over to the chances of this battle, which had a fierce attrac- 
tion for him on one hand, while on the other it filled him 
with a mad terror which reason could not subdue. So strong 
was this impulse that he hurried past the gate of Auchna- 
sheen and took the path that led up to the moors, with a 
sense of flying from, yet flying to, his spiritual enemies* He 
was met tnere by the gamekeeper, who began to talk to him 
about the game, and the expediency of inyiting “ twarthree ” 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


390 

gentlemen to shoot the coverts down by Linnheden, an in- 
terruption which seemed to his preoccupied soul too trival, 
too miserable to be borne with. He turned from the aston- 
ished speaker in the midst of his explanations, and rushed 
back with the impatience which was part of his character, 
exaggerated into a sort of mad intolerance of any interrup- 
tion. Not there, not there ; he began to remember the wild 
and mad contest which last year had gone on upon those 
hills, and with an instantaneous change of plan retraced his 
steps to the house, and burst into his mother’s presence, so 
pale, so wild, with eyes almost mad in their fire, looking out 
from the curves of his eyelids like those of a maniac. Her 
terror was great. She came up to him and laid her hands 
upon him, and cried out. What was it ? what was it ? And 
then it was that the active frenzy that had possessed him 
seemed to sink into the maze of that feverish confusion 
which was less violent, less terrible, more like the operations 
of nature. He was not aware that he looked at her piteously, 
and said, “ 1 want to stay with you, mother ” — childlifo 
words, which penetrated with a misery that was almost 
sweet to Mrs. Methven’s very heart. She put her arms round 
him, drawing down his head upon her Dosom, kissing his 
forehead with, trembling lips, holding him fast, as when he 
was a child and came toner for consolation. He was scarcely 
aware of all this, and yet it soothed him. The excitement of 
his brain was calmed. That uneasy haze of fever which con- 
fuses everything, the half-delirium of the senses through 
which the mind looks as through a mist, uneasy, yet with 
visions that are not all miserable, was a sort of paradise in 
comparison with the frenzy of a conflict in which every ex- 
pedient of torture was exercised upon him. He was grateful 
for the relief. That he did not know what he said or what 
she said, but heard the answering voices far off, like some- 
thing unreal, was nothing. There was a kind of safety in 
that society ; the enemy could not show himself there ; he 
had to stand off baffled and wait — ah, wait ! that was cer- 
tain. He had not flown— not Oona, not the mother, could save 
the victim altogether. They protected him for the moment, 
they held the foe at arm’s length ; but that could not be al- 
ways. Sooner or later the last struggle must come. 

Walter remained within doors all day. It was contrary 
to his habits, and this of itself added to the alarm of all about 
him ; but it was not inconsistent with the capricious impa- 
tient constitution of his mind, always ready to turn upon 
itself at a moment’s notice, and do that which no one ex- 
pected. During every hour of this long day he had to resist 
the strong impulse which was upon him— more than an im- 
pulse, a tearing and rending of his spirit, sometimes rising 
into sudden energy almost inconceivable, to go out and meet 
his enemy. But he held his ground so far with a dumb ob- 


THE WIZARHS SON, 


391 

stinacy which also was part of his character, and which was 
strengthened by the sensation of comparative exemption so 
long as he had the protection of others around him, and 
specially of his mother’s presence. It was with reluctance 
that he saw her ^o out of the room even for a moment ; and 
his eager look of inquiry when she left him, his attempts to 
retain her, his strained gaze towards the door till she re- 
turned, gave Mrs. Methven a sort of anguish of pleasure, if 
those contradictory words can be put together. To feel that 
she was something, much to him, could not but warm her 
heart ; but g:reat also was the misery of knowing that some- 
thing must indeed be very far wrong with Walter to make 
him thus, after so many years of independence, cling to his 
mother. 

“ It is like a fever coming on,” she said to Symington, 
with whom alone she could take any counsel. He is ill, 
very ill, I am sure of it. The doctor must he sent for. Have 
you ever seen him like this before ? ” 

“My lady,” said old Symington, “them that have the 
Methvens to deal with have need of much gumption. Have 
I seen him like that before? Oh, yes, I have seen him like 
that before. It is just their hour aftd the power o’ darkness. 
Let him be for two-three days ” 

“But in two or three days the fever may have taken sure 
hold of him. It may be losing precious time : it may get- 
fatal force ” 

“There is no fears of his life,” said old Symington; 
“ there is enough fear of other things.” 

“ Of what ? Oh, for God’s sake ! tell me ; don’t leave me 
in ignorance ! ” the mother cried. 

‘^But that’s just what I cannot do,” Symington said. “By 
the same token that I ken nothing mysel’.” 

While this conversation was going on, Walter, through 
his fever, saw them conspiring, plotting, talking about him 
as he would have divined and resented in other moods, but 
knew vaguely now in his mist of being that they meant him 
no harm, but good. 

And thus tne day went on. He prolonged it as long as 
he could, keeping his mother with him till long after the 
hour when the household was usually at rest. But, how- 
ever late, the moment came at last when he could detain her 
no longer. She, terrified, ignorant, fearing a dangerous ill- 
ness, was still more reluctant to leave him, if possible, than 
he was to let her go, and would have sat up all night watch- 
ing him had she ventured to make such a proposal. But at 
last Walter summoned up all his courage with a desperate 
effort, an effort of despair which restored him to himself and 
made a clear spot amid all the mist and confusion of the day. 

“Mother,” he said, as he lighted her candle, “you have 
been very good to me to-day ! Oh I know you have always 


392 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


been good— and I always ungrateful ; but I am not ungrate- 
ful now.” 

“Oh, Walter! what does that word mean between you 
and me ? If I could but do anything. It breaks my heart to 
see you like this.” 

“ Yes, mother,” he said ; “ and it may break my heart. I 
don’t know what may come of it — if I can stand, or if I must 
fall. Go and pray for me, mother.” 

“Yes, my dearest— yes, my own boy! as I have done 
every day, almost every hour, since ever you were born.” 

“ And so will Oona,"^’ he said. He made no response of 
affection to this brief record of a life devoted to him, which 
Mrs. Methven uttered with eyes full of tears and every line 
of her countenance quivering with emotion. He was ab- 
stracted into a world beyond all such expressions and re- 
sponses, on the verge of an ordeaLtoo terrible for him, more 
terrible than any he had yet sustained — like a man about to 
face fearful odds, and counting up what aids he could de- 
pend upon. “ And so will Oona,” he repeated to himself, 
aloud but unawares. Then he looked up at his mother with 
a sad glimmer of a smile and kissed her, and said, “ That 
should help me:” and jfvuthout waiting for her to go first, 
walked out of the room, like a blind man, feeling with his 
hand before him, and not seeing where he went. 

For already there had begun within him that clanging of 
the pulses, that mounting of every faculty of the nerves and 
blood to his head, the seat of thought, which throbbed as 
though it would burst, and to his heart, which thundered 
and labored and filled his ears with billows of somld. All 
his forces, half quiescent in the feverish pause of the day, 
were suddenly roused to action, ranging themselves to meet 
the last, the decisive, the most terrible assault of all. He 
went into his room and closed the door upon all mortal 
succor. The room was large and heavily furnished in the 
clumsy fashion of the last generation — heavy curtains, huge 
articles of furniture looming dark in the partial light, a 
gloomy expanse of space, dim mirrors glimmering here and 
there, the windows closely shut up and shrouded, every 
communication of the blessed air without, or such succor of 
light as might linger in the heavens, excluded. The old cas- 
tle, with its ruined battlements, seemed a more fit scene for 
spiritual conflict than the dull comfort of this gloomy cham- 
ber, shut in from all human communication. But Walter 
made no attempt to throw open the closed windows. Ho 
help from without could avail him, and he had no thought or 
time to spare for any exertion. He put his candle on the ta- 
ble and sat down to await what should befall. 

The night passed like other nights to most men, even to 
the greater number of the inhabitants in this house. Mrs. 
Methven after awhile, worn out, and capable of nothing that 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


393 

could help him, dozed and slept, half dressed, murmuring 
familiar prayers in her sleep, ready to start up at the faint- 
est call. But there came no call. Two or three times in the 
night there \vas a faint stir, and once old Symington, who 
was also on the alert, and whose room was near that of his 
master, saw Lord Erradeen come out of his chamber with a 
candle in his hand, the light of which showed his counte- 
nance all ghastly and furrowed as with the action of years, 
and go down stairs. The old man, watching from the gal- 
lery above, saw his master go to the door, which he opened, 
admitting a blast of night wind which seemed to bring ui 
the darkness as well as cold. Symington waited trembling 
to hear it clang behind the unfortunate young man. Where 
was he going to in the middle of the night? But after a few 
minutes the door, instead of clanging, closed softly, and 
Walter came back. It might be that this happened, more 
than once while the slow hours crept on, for the watcher, 
hearing more than there was to hear, thought that there 
were steps about the house, and vague sounds of voices. But 
this was all vanity and superstition. No one came in, with 
none, save with his own thoughts, did Walter speak. Had 
his enemy entered boldly, and even with maddening words 
maintained a personal conflict, the sutferer would have been 
less harshly treated. Once, as Symington had seen, he was 
so broken down by the conflict that he was on the eve of a 
shameful flight which would have been ruin. When he 
came downsteirs with his candle in the dead of the night 
and opened the great hall door he had all but throwmdown 
his arms and consented that nothing remained for him but 
to escape while he could, as long as he could, to break all 
ties and abandon all succor, and only flee, flee from the in- 
tolerable moment. He had said to himself that he could 
bear it no longer, that he must escape any how, at any cost, 
leaving love and honor, and duty and every higher thought : 
for what could help him ?--nothing— nothing— in earth or 
heaven ! 

That which touched him to the quick was not any menace, 
it was not the horror of the struggles through which he had 
already passed ; it was the maddening derision with which his 
impulses were represented to him as the last expedients of a 
refined selfishness. When his tormentor in the mornmg had 
bidden him with a smile, “ Be good ! ” as the height of policy, 
it had seemed to Walter that the point of the intolerable was 
reached, and that life itself under such an interpretation be- 
came insupportable, a miserable jest, a mockery hateful to 
God and man but there was yet a lower depth, a more hate- 
ful derision still. Love ! what was his love ? a way of se- 
curing help, a means of obtaining, under pretences of the 
finest sentiment, some one who would supremely help him, 
stand by him always, protect him with the presence of a 


394 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


nature purer than his own. Nothing was said to the un- 
happy young man. It was in the course of his own thoughts 
that this suggestion arose, like a light of hell illuminating 
all the dark corners of his being. Had he ever said to Oona 
that he loved her ? Did he love her ? Was it for any motive 
but his own safety that he sought her? Katie he had sought 
for her wealth, for the increase of importance she could bring, 
for the relief from torture she could secure to him. And 
Oona, Oona whom he loved ! Was it for love he fled to her ? 
Oh, no, but for safety ! All was miserable, all was self, all 
was for his own interest, to save Aim, to emancipate him, to 
make life possible for him. He had started to his feet when 
this intolerable consciousness (for was it not true?) took 
possession of him. It was true. She was sweet and fair, and 
good and lovely, a creature like the angels ; but he, miserable, 
had thought only in that her company was safety— that she 
could deliver him. He sent forth a cry of anguish which at 
the same time sounded like the laughter of despair, and 
seemed to shake the house ; and took up his candle, and 
opened his door and hurried forth— to escape, where he did 
not know, how he did not know, nor care — to escape from the 
ridicule of this life, the horror of this travestie and parody of 
everything good and fair. Heaven and earth ! to seek good- 
ness because it was the most profitable of all things ; to seek 
love because it was safety ; to profane everything dear and 
sacred to his own advantage ! Can a man know this, and re- 
cognize it, with all the masks and pretences torn off, and yet 
consent, to live, and better himself by the last desecration of 
all ! He went down with hurried steps through the silence 
of his house, that silence through which was rising the 
prayers of the mother in whose love too he had taken refuge 
when in despair, whom he had bidden to go and pray, for his 
advantage, solely for him,' that he might steal from God a 
help he did not deserve, by means of her cries and tears. 
“ And so will Oona,” he had said. Oh, mockery of everything 
sacred !— all for him, for his self-interest, who deserved noth- 
ing, who made use of all. 

He opened the door, and stood bareheaded, solitary, on 
^ the edge of the quiet, lonely night : behind him life and hope, 
and torture and misery— before him the void, the blank into 
which the wretched may escape and lose— if not themselves, 
that inalienable heritage of woe— yet their power to harm 
those who love them. He loved nobody, it seemed, but for 
himself— prized nothing but for himself ; held love, honor, 
goodness, purity, only as safeguards for his miserable life. 
Let it go then, that wretched contemner of all good— disap- 
pear into the blackness of darkness, where God nor man 
should be disturbed by its exactions more ! 

The night was wild with a raving wind that dashed the 
tree-tops against the sky, and swept the clouds before it in 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


395 

flying masses ; no moon, no light, gloom impenetrable below, 
a pale glimpse of heaven above, swept by black billows oi 
tumultuous cloud ; somewhere in the great gloom the loch, 
all invisible, waited for the steps that might stumble upon 
its margin, the profound world of darkness closed over every 
secret that might be cast into it. He stood on the thresh- 
old in a momentary pause, 'forlorn, alone, loosing his hold 
of all that he had clung to, to save him. Why should he be 
saved who was unworthy ? Why trouble earth or heaven ? 
The passion and the struggle died out of Walter’s soul ; a 
profound sadness took possession of him ; he felt his heart 
turn trembling within him, now that even the instinct of 
self-preservation Avhich had driven him to her feet failed 
him— to Oona whom he loved. God bless her ! not for him 
would be that sweet companionship : and yet of all things 
the world contained, was not that the best? Two that should 
be one. All that was external died away. He forgot for the 
first time since it had been revealed to him, that he had an 
enemy, a t5rrant waiting for his submission. His heart turn- 
ed to the love which he had thought he dishonored, without 
even recollecting that cursed suggestion. It seemed to him 
now, that he was giving it up for Oona’s sake, and that only 
now all its beauty, its sweetnes^s, was clear to him. Oh, the 
pity of it ! to see all this, so lovely, so fair, and yet have to 
resign it ! What was everything else in comparison with 
that ? But for her sake, for her dear sake ! 

How dark it was, impenetrable, closing like a door upon 
the mortal eyes which had in themselves no power to pene- 
trate that gloom. He stepped across the threshold of life, 
and stood outside, in the dark. He turned his eyes— for once 
more, for the last time, in the great calm of renunciation, 
his heart in a hush of supreme anguish, without conflict or 
struggle — to where she was separated from him only by silent 
space and atmosphere, soon to be separated by more perfect 
barriers ; hoping nothing, asking nothing, save only to turn 
his head that way — ^not even to see where she was hidden in 
the night : so small a satisfaction, so little consolation ! yet 
something before the reign of nothingness began. 

All dark ; but no— half way between heaven and earth, 
what was that, shining steady through the gloom ? Not a 
star ; it was too warm, too large, too near ; the light in^ 
Oona’s window shining in the middle of the night when all 
was asleep around. Then she was not asleep, though every- 
thing else was, but watching— and if watching, then for him. 
The little light, which was but a candle in a window, 
suddenly, brilliantly lighted up the whole heavens and earth 
to Walter. Watching, and for him ; praying for him, not 
because of any appeal of his, but out of her own heart, and 
because she so willed it— out of the prodigality, the generous, 
unmeasured love which it was her choice to give him—not 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


396 

forced, but freely, because she so pleased. ^ He stood for 
a moment with 
make another ste' 
the , change of al _ 
away 5 he stood astonished, perceiving for the first time 
what it was. To have become part of him had brought no 
joy to Oona, but it was done, and never could be undone ; 
and to be part of her, what was that to Walter ? He had 
said it without knowing what it meant, without any real 
sense of the great thing he said. Now it fell upon him in a 
'great wonder, full of awe. He was hers, he was Aer, not 
himself henceforward, but a portion of another: and that 
other portion of him standing for him at the gates of heaven. 
His whole being fell into silence, overawed. He stepped 
back out of the night and closed softlv the great door, and 
returned to his room, in which everything was stilled by a 
spell before which all evil things fiy — the apprehension of 
that love which is unmerited, unextorted, unalterable. 
When he reached his room, and had closed the door, Walter, 
with trembling hands undid the window, and flung it open 
to the night, which was no more night or darkness, but part 
of the everlasting day, so tempered that feeble eyes might 
perceive those lights which hide themselves in the sunshine. 
What was it he saw? Up in the heavens, where the clouds 
swept over them, stars shining, undisturbed, though hidden 
by moments as the masses 01 earthly vapor rolled across 
the sky ; near him stealing out of his mother’s window a 
slender ray of light that never wavered : further off, held up 
as in the very hand of love, the little lamp of Oona. The 
young man was silent in a great awe; his heart stirring 
softly in him, hushed, like the heart of a child. For him ! 
unworthy ! for him who had never sought the love of God, 
who had profaned the love of woman : down, down on his 
knees— down to the dust hiding his face in gratitude 
unutterable. He ceased to think of what it was he had 
been struggling and contending for ; he forgot his enemy, 
his danger, himself altogether, and overawed, sank at the 
feet of love, which alone can save. 


CHAPTER XLIY. 

Loed Erkapeen was found next morning lying on his 
bed full dressed sleeping like a child. A man in his evening 
dress in the clear air of morning is at all times a curious 
spectacle, and suggestive of many uncomfortable thoughts : 
but there was about Walter as he lay there fast asleep an 
extreme youthfulness not characteristic of his appearance 
on ordinary occasions, which made the curious and anxious 


iwe in nis neart, arresrea, nor a me lu 
, pale with the revolution, the revelation, 
thinsrs. His own dark thoughts died 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


397 

Spectator who bent over him, think instinctively of a child 
who had cried itself to sleep, and a convalescent recovering 
irom a long illness. Symington did not know which his 
voung master resembled the most. The old man stood and 
looked at him, with great and almost tender compassion. 
One of the windows stood wide open admitting the air and 
sunshine. But it had evidently been open all night, and 
must have chilled the sleeper through and through. Syming- 
ton had come with all his usual paraphernalia to wake Lord 
Erradeen. But as he looked at him the water came into his 
eyes. Instead of calling him he covered him carefully with 
a warm covering, softly closed the window, and left all his 
usual morning preparations untouched. This done, he went 
downstairs to the breakfast-room where Mrs. Methven, too 
anxious to rest, was already waiting for her son. Symington 
closed the door behind him, and came up to the table which 
was spread for breakfast. 

My lady,” he said, “ my lord will no be veesible for some 
time. I found him sleeping like a bairn, and I had not the 
heart to disturb him. ]\o doubt he’s had a bad night : but 
if I’m any judge of the human countenance he will wake 
another man.” 

“ Oh, my poor boy ! You did weU to let him rest, Syming- 
ton. I will go up and sit by him ” 

“ If ye will take my advice, my lady, ye will just take a 
little breakfast ; a good cup of tea, and one of our fine fresh 
eggs, or a bit of trout from the loch ; or I could find ye a 
bonnie bit of the breast of a bird.” 

“I can eat nothing,” she said, “when my son is in 
trouble.” 

“ Oh, canny, canny, my lady. I am but a servant, but I 
am one that takes a great interest. He’s in no trouble at 
this present moment ; he’s just sleeping like a baby, maybe 
a wee bit worn out, but not a line o’ care in his face : just 
sleepin’ — sleepin’ like a little bairn. It will do you mair hdrm 
than him if I may mak’ so bold as to speak. A cup of tea, 
my lady, just a cup of this fine tea, if nothing else— it vdll do 
ye good. And I’ll answer for him,” said Symington. “ I’m 
well acquaint with all the ways of them,’’ the old servant 
added, “if I might venture, madam, to offer a word of advice, 
it would be this, just to let him bee.” 

A year ago Mrs. Methven would have considered this an 
extraordinary liberty for a servant to take, and perhaps 
would have resented the advice : but at that time she did 
not know Symington, nor was she involved in the mysterious 
circumstances oi this strange life. She received it with a 
meekness which was not characteristic, and took the cup of 
tea Avhich he poured out for her, with a lump of sugar too 
much, by way of consolation, and a liberal supply of «ream, 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


398 

almost with humility. “ If he is not better when he comes 
downstairs, I thinh I must send for the doctor, Symington. 

“ I would not, my lady, if 1 were you. I would just watch 
over him, but let him bee. I would wait for two-three days 
and just put up with everything. The Meths^ens are no just 
a race like other folk. Ye require great judgment to deal 
with the Methvens. Ye have not been brought up to it, my 
lady, like me.” 

All this Mrs. Methven received very meekly, and only 
gratified herself with a cup of tea which was palatable to 
her, after Symington having done everything he could for 
her comfort, had withdrawn. She was very much subdued 
by the new circumstances in which she found herself, and 
felt very lonely and cast away, as in a strange land where 
everything was unknown. She sat for a long time by her- 
self, trying to calm her thoughts by what S^ymington had 
said. She consented that he knew a great deal more than 
she did, even of her son in his new position, and had come 
to put a sort of implicit faith in him as in an oracle. But 
how hard it was to sit still, or to content herself with look- 
ing out upon that unfamiliar prospect, when her heart was 
longing to be by her son’s bedside i Better to “ let him be ! ” 
—alas, she knew very well and had knowm for long that it 
was better to “ let him be.” But what was there so hard to 
do as that was? The shrubberies that surrounded the 
window allowed a glimpse at one side of the loch, cold, but 
gleaming in the morning sunshine. It made her shiver, yet 
it was beautiful ; and as with the landscape, so it was with 
her position here. To be with Walter, ready to be of use to 
him, whatever happened, that was well ; but all was cold, 
and solitary, and unknown. Poor mother ! She had loved, 
and cherished, and cared for him all the days of his life, and 
a year since he had scarcely seen Oona; yet it was Oona’s 
love, and not his mother’s, which had made him understand 
what love was. Strange injustice! yet the injustice of 
nature, against which it is vain to rebel. This, however, 
Mrs. Methven did not know. 

When Walter left his betrothed, between whom and him- 
self so strange and sudden a breach had come in the solitude 
of the isle, Oona’s heart was rent by many bitter thoughts, 
which, however, she dared not give herself time either to 
examine or indulge. The day wich had passed so miser- 
ably to Walter went over her in that self-repression which 
is one of the powers of women, in her mother’s cheerful 
society, and amid all the little occupations of her ordinary 
life, unless she had been prepared, as she was not, to open 
everything to Mrs. Forrester, this was her only alternative. 
She smiled, and talked, even ate against her will, that her 
mother might not take fright and search into the cause ; so 
that it was not till she had retired into the refuge of her own 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


399 

room that she was at liberty to throw herself down in all 
the abandon of solitude and weep out the tears which made 
her brow heavy, and think out the thoughts with which her 
mind was charged almost to bursting. Her candle had 
burned almost all the night long— long after the moment in 
which the sight of it had held Walter back, and saved him 
from the flight which would have ended only in death. 

The conflict in Oona’s mind was longer, it not so violent. 
There are some people in whose hands it is safe to leave 
one’s case, however appearances maybe against one — and 
Oona was one of these. With an effort she was able to dis- 
miss herself from the consideration, and with that entire 
sympathy which may mistake the facts but never the inten- 
tion, to enter into the mind of her lover. There was much 
that she could not understand, and did not attempt to fathom, 
and the process was not one of those that bring happiness, 
as when a woman, half-adoring, follows in her own exalted 
imagination the high career of the hero whom she loves. 
Walter was no hero, and Oona no simple worshipper to be 
beguiled into that deification. She had to account to herself 
for the wanderings, the contradictions, the do>vnfalls, of a 
man of whom she could not think, as had been the first im- 
pulse of pain^ that any woman would satisfy him, that Katie 
or Oona, it did not matter which ; but who it was yet true 
had offered himself to Katie first, had given himself to vice 
(which made her shudder) first of all, and had been roaming 
wildly through life without purpose or hope. In all the 
absolutism of youth to know this, and yet to recognize that 
the soul within may not be corrupt, and that there may be 
still an agony of longing for the true even in the midst of 
the false, is difficult indeed. She achieved it, but it was not 
a happy effort. Bft by bit it became clearer to her ) had she 
known the character of the interview with Katie which 
gave her grievous pain even when she reasoned it out and 
said to herself that she understood it, the task would have 
been a little less hard ; but it was hard and very bitter, by 
moments almost more than she could bear. As she sat by 
the dying fire, with her li^ht shining so steadily, like a little 
Pharos of love and steadfastness, her mmd went through 
many faintings and moments of darkness. To have to per- 
ceive and acknowledge that you have given your heart and 
joined your life to that of a man who is no hero, one in whom 
you cannot alw^ays trust that his impulses will be right, is a 
discovery which is often made in after life, but by degrees,* 
and so gently, so imperceptibly, that love suffers but little 
shock. But to make this discovery at the very outset is far 
more terrible than any other obstacle that can stand in the 
way. Oona was compelled to face it from the first moment 
almost of a union which she felt in herself no possibility of 
breaking. She had given herself, and she could not with- 


400 


THE WIZARD^ S SON. 


draw the ^ft, any more than she could withdraw from him 
the love which, long before, she had been betrayed, she knew 
not how, into bestowing upon him unasked, undesired, to 
her own pain and shame. 

As she sat all through the night and felt the cold steal 
through her, into her very heart, and the desolation of the 
darkness gam upon her while she pondered, she was aware 
that this love was stronger than death, and that to abandon 
him was no more possible to her than if she had been his 
wife for years. The girl had come suddenly, without warn- 
ing, without any fault of hers, out of her innocence and 
lightheartedness, into the midst of the most terrible problem 
of life. To love yet not approve, to know that the being who 
is part of you is not like you, has tendencies which are hate- 
ful to you, and a hundred inclinations which the subtlest 
casuistry of love cannot justify— what terrible fate is this, 
that a woman should fall into it unawares and be unable to 
free herself ? Oona did not think of freeing herself at all. 
It did not occur to her as a possibility. How she was to bear 
his burden which was hers, how she was to reconcile herself 
to his being as it was, and help the good in him to develop- 
ment,,and struggle with him against the evil, that was her 
problem. Love is often tested in song and story by the 
ordeal oi a horrible accusation brought against the innocent, 
whom those who love him, knowing his nature, stand by 
through all disgrace, certain that he cannot be guilty, and 
maintaining his cause in the face of all seeming proof. How 
light, how easy, what an elementary lesson of affection ! But 
to have no such confidence, to take up the defence of the 
sinner who offends no one so much as yourself, to know that 
the accusations are true— that it is the ordeal by fire, which 
the foolish believe to be abolished in our mild and easy days. 
Oona saw it before her, reali-zed it, and made up her mind 
to it solemnly during that night of awe and pain. This was 
her portion in the world ; not simple life and happiness, 
chequered only with shadows pure, if terrible, death, and 
misfortune such as may befall the righteous— but miseries 
far other, far different, to which misfortune and death are 
but easy experiments in the way of suffering. This was to 
be her lot. 

And yet love is so sweet ! She slept towards morning, 
as Walter did, and when she woke, woke to a sense of hap- 
piness so exquisite and tender that her soul was astonished 
and asked why, in an outburst of gratitude and praise to 
God. And it was not till afterwards that the burden and 
all the darkness came back to her. But that moment per ' 
haps w^as worth the pain of the other— one of those compen- 
sations, invisible to men, with which God still comforts His 
saints. She rose from her bed and came back to life with a 
face full of new gravity and thoughtfulness, yet lit up with 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


401 


smiles. Even Mrs. Forrester, who had seen nothing and 
suspected nothing on the previous night except that Oona 
had perhaps taken a chill, felt, though she scarcely under- 
stood, a something in her face which was beyond the ordinary 
level of life. She remarked to Mysie, after breakfast, that 
she was much relieved to see that Miss Oona’s cold was to 
have no bad result. “ For I think she is looking just bonnier 
than usual this morning— if it is not my partiality ; like a 
spring morning,” Mrs. Forrester said. 

“ Eh mem, and mair than that,” said Mysie. “ God bless 
her ! She is looking as I have seen her look the Sabbath of 
the Sacrament ; for she’s no like the like of us, just hard- 
ened baith to good and evil, but a’ in a tremble for sorrow 
and joy, when the Occasion comes round.” 

“I hope we are not hardened,” said Mrs. Forrester ; “ but 
I know what you mean, Mysie, though you cannot perhaps 
express it like an educated person ; and I was afraid that 
she was taking one of her bad colds, and that we would be 
obliged to put off our visit to Mrs. Methven— which would 
have been a great pity, for I had promised to Lord Erra- 
deen.” 

“ Do you not think, mem.” said Mysie, “ that yon young 
lord he is very much taken up with — the isle and those that 
are on it?” 

‘‘Hoots,” said Mrs. Forrester with a smile, “with you 
and me, Mysie, do you think ? But that might be after all, 
for I would not wonder but he felt more at home with the 
like of us, that have had so much to do with boys and young 
men, and all the ways of them. And you know I have always 
said he was like Mr. Rob, which has warmed my heart to 
him from the very first day.” 

Perhaps the mother was, no more than Mysie, inclined to 
think that she and her old maid won the young lord’s atten- 
tion to the isle : but a woman who is a girl’s mother, how- 
evel* simple she may be, has certain innocent wiles in this 
particular. Lord Erradeen would be a great match for any 
other young lady on the loch, no doubt : but for Oona what 
prince was good enough ? They both thought so, yet not 
without a little flutter of their hearts at the new idea which 
began to dawn. 

It was once more a perfectly serene and beautiful day, a 
day that was like Oona^s face, adapted to that “ Sabbath of 
the Sacrament ” which is so great a festival in rural Scot- 
land, and brings all the distant dwellers out of the glens 
and villages. About noon, when the sun was at its height, 
and the last leaves on the trees seemed to reflect in their red 
and yellow, and return a dazzling response to his shining, 
Hamish, busy about his fishing tackle on the beach, per- 
ceived a boat with a solitary rower, slowly rounding the 
leafy corners, making a circuit of the isle. Hamish was in 


402 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


no doubt as to who it was. His brow, which for the last 
twenty-four hours had been full of furrows, gradually began 
to melt out of those deep-drawn lines, his shaggy eyebrows 
smoothed out, his mouth began to soften at the corners. 
There was much that was mysterious in the whole matter, 
and Hamish had not been able to account to himself for the 
change in the young pair who had stepped out of his boat on 
to the isle in an ecstasy of happiness, and had returned 
sombre, under the shadow of some sudden estrangement 
which he could not understand. Neither could he under- 
stand why it was that the young lord hovered about without 
attempting to land at the isle. This was so unlike the usual 
custom of lovers, that Hamish could not but feel there was 
something “ out of the ordinary” in the proceeding. But 
his perplexity on this subject did not diminish his satisfac- 
tion in perceiving that the young lord was perfectly capable 
of managing his boat, and that ho trace of the excitement of 
the previous day was visible in its regular motion, impelled 
now and then by a single stroke, floating on the sunny sur- 
face of the water within sight of the red roofs and white 
windows of the house, and kept in its course out of the way 
of all rocks and projecting corners by a skill which could 
not, Hamish felt sure, be possessed by a disordered brain. 
This solaced him beyond telling, for though he had not said 
a word to any one, not even to Mysie, it had lain heavily 
upon his heart that Miss Oona might be about to link her 
life to that of a daft man. She that was good enough for 
any king ! and what were the Erradeens to make so muckle 
work about, but just a mad race that nobody could under- 
stand. The late lord had been one that could not hold an 
oar to save his life, nor yet yon Underwood-man that was 
his chosen crony. But this lad was different ! Oh ! there 
was no doubt that there was a great difference ; just one 
easy touch and he was clear of the fitanes yonder, that 
made so little show under the water— and then there .was 
that shallow where he would get aground if he didna mind ; 
but again a touch and that difficulty too was cleared. It was 
so well done that the heart of Hamish melted altogether into 
softness, and then he began to take pity upon this modest 
lover. He put his hands to his mouth and gave forth a 
mild roar which was not more than a wffiisper in kind in- 
tention. 

“ The ladies are at home, and will ye no land, my lord ? ” 
Hamish cried. 

Lord Erradeen shook his head, and sent his boat soft 
gliding into a little bay under the overhanging trees. 

“ Hamish,” he said, “ you can tell me. Are they coming 
to-day to Auchnasheen ? ” 

“ At half-past two, my lord,” breathed Hamish through 
his curved hands, “they’ll be taking the water ; audit’s just 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


403 

Miss Oqna herself that has given me my orders : and as I 
was saying they could not have a bonnier day.” 

It seemed to Hamish that the young lord said “ Thank 
God ! ” which was perhaps too much for the occasion, and 
just a thocht profane in the circumstances ; but a lord that 
is in love, no doubt there will be much forgiven to him so 
long as he has a true heart. The sunshine caught Hamish 
as he stood watching the boat which floated along the shin- 
ing surface of the water like something beautifled, an em- 
blem of divine ease, and pleasure, and calm— and made his 
face shine too like the loch, and his red shirt glow. His 
good heart glowed too with humble and generous joy ; they 
were going to be happy then, the Two— no that he ‘was good 
enough for Miss Oona ; but who was good enough for Miss 
Oona ? The faithful fellow drew his rough hand across his 
eyes. He who had rowed her about the loch since she was 
a child, and attended every coming and going— he knew it 
would be a sair loss, a loss never to be made up. But then so 
long as she was pleased ! 

At half-past two they started, punctual as Mrs. Forrester 
always was. Every event of this day was so important that 
it was remembered after how exact they were to the minute, 
and in what a glory of sunshine Loch Houran lay as they 
pushed out, Mysie standing on the beach to watch them, 
and lending a hand herself to launch the boat. Mrs. Forres- 
ter was well wrapped in her fur cloak with a white cloud ” 
about her head and shoulders, which she declared was not 
at all necessary in the sunshine. “ It is just a June day 
come astray,” she said, nodding and smiling to Mysie on the 
beach : who thought once more of the Sacrament-day with 
its subdued. glory and awe, and all the pacifying influences 
that dwelt in it. And Oona turned back to make a little 
friendly sign with hand and head to Mysie, as the first stroke 
of the oars carried the boat away. 

How sweet her face was ; how tender her smile and 
bright ! More sorrowful than mirthful, like one who has 
been thinking of life and death— but full of celestial and 
tender cheer, and a subdued happiness. Mysie stood long 
looking after them, and listening to their voices which came 
soft and musical over the water. She could not have told 
why the tears came to her eyes. Something was about to 
happen, which would be joyful yet would be sad. “ Hone of 
us will stand in her way,” said Mysie to herself, unconscious 
of any possibility, that she the faithful servant of the house 
might be supposed to have no say in the matter ; “ oh, not 
one of us ! but w^hat will the isle be with Miss Oona away ! ” 


404 


THE WlZARD^S SON. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

Mrs. Methven had time to recover from the agitation 
and trouble of the morning before her visitors’ arrival. 
Walter’s aspect had so much changed when he appeared 
that her fears were calmed, though not dispelled. He was 
very pale, and had an air of exhaustion, to which his soften- 
ed manners and evident endeavor to please her gaye^ an al- 
most pathetic aspect. Her heart was touched, as it is easy 
to touch the heart of a mother. She had watched him go 
out in his boat with a faint awakening of that pleasure with 
which in ordinary circumstances a woman in the retirement 
of age sees her children go out to their pleasure. It gave 
her a satisfaction full of relief, and a sense of escape from 
evils which she had feared, without knowing what she 
feared, to watch the lessening speck of the boat, and to feel 
that her son was finding consolation in natural and uncon- 
taminated pleasures, in the pure air and sky and sunshine of 
the morning. When he came back he was a little less pale, 
though still strangely subdued and softened. He told her 
that she was about to receive a visit from his nearest neigh- 
bors— “the young lady,” he added, after a pause, “vmo 
brought you across the loch.” 

“ Miss Forrester— and her mother, no doubt. I shall be 
glad to see them, Walter.” 

“ I hope so, mother— for there is no way in which you 
can do me so much good.” 

“You mean— this is the lady of whom y6u spoke to me—” 
Her countenance fell a little, for what he had said to her 
was not reassuring ; he had spoken of one who would bring 
money with her, but who was not the best. 

“No, mother ; I never told you what I did yesterday. I 
asked that— lady of whom I spoke— to give me her money 
and her lands to add to mine, and she would not. She was 
very right. I approved of her with all my heart.” 

“ Walter ! my dear, you have been so— well— and so— like 
yourself this morning. Do not fall into this wild way of 
speaking again.” 

“No,” he said, “if all goes well— never again if all goes 
well ; ” and with this strange speech he left her not knowing 
what to think. She endeavored to recall to her memory the 
face of the young stranger who had come to her aid on her 
arrival, but all the circumstances had been so strange, and 
the loch itself had given such a sensation of alarm and 
trouble to the traveller, that everything was dim like the 
twilight in her recollection. A soft voice, with the unfamiliar 
accent of the north, a courteous and pleasant frankness of 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


4o5 


accost, a strange sense of thus encountering, half unseen, 
some one who was no stranger, nor miimportant in her life 
—these were the impressions she had brought out of the 
meeting. In all things this poor lady was like a stranger 
suddenly introduced into a world unknown to her, where 
great matters, concerning her happiness and very existence, 
were hanging upon mysterious decisions of others, unknown, 
and but to be guessed at faintly through a mode of speaking 
strange to her, and amidst allusions which conveyed no 
meaning to her mind. Thus she sat wondering, waiting for 
the coming of — she could scarcely tell whom — of some one 
with whom she could help Walter, yet who was not the 
lady to whom he had offered himself only yesterday. Could 
there be any combination more confusing ? And when, amid 
all this mystery, as she sat with her heart full of tremulous 
questions and fears, there came suddenly into this darkling, 
uncomprehended world of hers the soft and smiling certainty 
of Mrs. Forrester, kind and simple, and full of innocent 
affectations, with her little airs of an old beauty, and her 
amiable confidence in everybody’s knowledge and interest, 
Mrs. Methven had nearly laughed aloud with a keen sense 
of mingled disappointment and relief. The sweet gravity of 
Oona behind was but a second impression. The first was of 
this simple, easy flood of kind and courteous commonplace. 

“We are all very glad upon the loch to hear that Lord 
Erradeen has got his mother with him,” said this guileless 
woman, “ for everything is the better of a lady in the house. 
Oh, yes, you will say, that is just a woman’s opinion, mak- 
ing the most of her own side : but you know very well it is 
true. We have not seen half so much of Lord Erradeen as 
we would have liked — for in my circumstances we have so 
little in our power. 'No gentleman in the house ; and what 
can two ladies do to entertain a young man, unless he will 
be content with his tea in the afternoon ? and that is little 
to ask a gentleman to. 

“Your daughter was most kind to me when I arrived,” 
said Mrs.Metheven. “ I should have felt very lonely without 
her help.” 

“ That was nothing. It was just a pleasure to Oona, who 
is on the loch from morning to night,” said Mrs. Forrester. 
“ It was a great chance for her to be of use. We have little 
happening here, and the news was a little excitement for us 
all. You see, though I have boys of my own, they are all of 
them away— what would they do here ?— one in Canada, and 
one in New Zealand, and three, as I need not say, in India— 
that is where all our boys go— and doing very well, which is 
iust all that heart can desire. It has been a pleasure from 
ibhe beginning that Lord Erradeen reminds me so much of 
my Rob, who is now up with his regiment in the northwest 
provinces, and a very promising young officer, though per- 


THE WJZARHS SOM. 


406 

haps it is not me that should say so. The complexion is 
different, but I have always seen a great likeness. And now, 
Lord Erradeen, I hope yoii will bring Mrs. Methven soon, as 
long as the fine weather lasts, to the isle.” 

Sirs. Methven made a little civil speech about taking the 
first opportunity, but added, “ I have seen nothing yet— not 
even tins old castle of which 1 have heard so much.” 

“ It is looking beautiful this afternooUj and I have not 
been there myself, I may say, for years,” said Mrs. Forrester. 
“ What would you say, as it is so fine, to trust yourself to 
Hamish, who is just the most careful man with a boat on all 
the loch, and take a turn as far as Kinloch Houran with 
Oona and me ? ” 

The suggestion was thrown out very lightly, with that 
desire to do something for the pleasure of the stranger, 
which was always so strong in Mrs. Forrester’s breast. She 
would have liked to supplement it with a proposal to “ come 
home by the isle” and take a cup of tea : but refrained for 
the moment with great self-denial. It was caught at eagerly 
by Walter, who had not known how to introduce his mother 
to the sight of the mystic place which had so much to do 
with his recent history, and in a very short time they were 
all afioat — Mrs. Methven, half-pleased half-disappointed to 
find all graver thoughts and alarms turned mto the simpli- 
city of a party of pleasure, so natural, so easy. The loch 
was radiant with tnat glory of the afternoon which is not 
like the glory of the morning, a dazzling world of light, the 
sunbeams falling lower every moment, melting into the 
water, which showed all its ripples like molten gold. The 
old tower lay red in the light, the few green leaves that still 
fiuttered on the ends of the branches, standing out against 
the darker background, and the glory of the western illumi- 
nation besetting every dark corner of the broken walls as if 
to take them by joyful assault and triumph over every idea 
of gloom. Nothing could have been more peaceful than the 
appearance of the group. The two elder ladies so suddenly 
brought together sat in the stern of the boat, carrying on 
their tranquil conversation. Mrs. Forrester was entirely at 
her ease thinking of nothing; though to Mrs. Methven after 
the fears and excitement of the past night this sudden lapse 
into the natural and ordinary was half-delightful, half-ex- 
asperating, wholly unreal, and like a dream. Oona, who had 
scarcely spoken at all, and who was glad to be left to her own 
thoughts, sat by her mother’s side^ with the eyes of the other 
mother often upon her, vet taking no part in the talk: 
while Walter, perched behind Hamish at the other end of 
the boat, felt this strange pause of all sensation to be 
something providential, something beyond all his power 
of arranging, the preface to he knew not what — but at least 
not to any cutting off or separation from Oona. She had 


THE WriARHS SON. 


407 

met his eyes with a soft look of pardon; she had given 
him her hand without hesitation. The look, which all had 
observed, bad for him the meaning which no one else knew. 
It meant no ecstacy of haj^pylove, but a deeper, stronger cer- 
tainty than any such excitement of the moment. I will 
never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” It was God who said 
that, and not a woman ; but it was reflected in Oona’s face. 
She was not thinking, as so many happy and proud and gen- 
tle souls have thought, of the happiness that love was bring- 
ing, the gifts of tenderness and protection and constant sup- 

E ort filling up their own being, which henceforward were to 
e theirs ; but of him and of his need, and how she was to ful- 
fil her trust. She looked at him, on the other side of those 
anxious eyes of Hamish, which kept ceaseless watch upon 
her, without a reproach, or even a consciousness in her look 
that there was anything to pardon. He was not sufficiently 
apart from her now to be pardoned. One does not pardon 
one’s self. One goes on to the next trial, trembling yet con- 
fident, with a gathering of all one’s forces. “ This time we 
shall not fail,” her eyes seemed to say. 

“ No, I have not been here for long,” said Mrs. Forrester ; 
“not since the late lord’s time, when I had the permission 
to bring over Willie and Charley, who were just joining 
their regiments. They are never fond of letting strangers 
in, the Lords Erradeen. Oh 1 may say that before you. Lord 
Erradeen, for you are just new blood, and I am hoping will 
have new laws. I see very little change. If you will come 
this way, Mrs, Methven, it is here you will get the best ^dew. 
Yon is the tower upon which the light is seen, the light, ye 
will have heard, that calls every new lord ; oh and that 
comes many a time when there is no new lord. You need 
not bid me whist, Oona! No doubt there will be some ex- 
planation of it ; but it is a thing that all the world knows.” 

Mrs. Methven laughed, more at her ease than she had yet 
been, and said, — 

“Walter, what a terrible omission ; you have never told 
me of this.” 

Walter did not laugh. His face, on the contrary, assumed 
the look of gloom and displeasure which she knew so well. 

“ If you will come with me,” he said to Mrs. Forrester, “I 
will show you my rooms. Old Macalister is more gracious 
than usual. Y^ou see he has opened the door.” 

“ Oh, I will go with great pleasure. Lord Erradeen, for I 
have never been inside, and I would like to see your rooms. 
Oh, how do you do, Macalister ? I hope your wife and you 
are quite well, and not suffering with rheumatism. We’ve 
come to show Mrs. Methven, that is your master’s mother, 
round the place. Yes, I am sure ye will all be very glad to 
see her. This is IVIacalister, a very faithful old servant that 
has been with the Lords Erradeen as long as I can remember. 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


408 


How long is it— near five and forty years ? Dear me, it is 
just wonderful how time runs on. I was then but lately mar- 
ried, and never thought I would ever live like a pelican in 
the wilderness in my mother’s little bit isle. But your mind 
just is made to your fortune, and I have had many a happy 
day there. Dear me, it will be very interestmg to see the 
rooms, we that never knew there were any habitable rooms. 
Where is Oona ? Oh never take the trouble. Lord Erradeen. 
your mother is waiting, and Oona, that knows every step or 
the castle, she will soon find her way.” 

This was how it was that Oona found herself alone. Walter 


cast behind him an anxious look, but he could not desert the 
elder ladies, and Oona was glad to be left behind. Her mind 
had altogether recovered its calm ; but she had much to 
think of, and his presence disturbed her, with that influence 
of personal contact which interferes with thought. She 
knew the old castle, if not every step of it, as her mother 
said, yet enough to make it perfectly safe for her. Old Mac- 
alister had gone first to lead the way, to open doors and win- 
do ws^ that the ladies might see everything; and, save for 
Hamish in his boat on the beach, there was nobody within 
sight or call. The shadow of the old house shut out the smi- 
shine from the little platform in front of the door; but at 
the further side, where the trees grew among the broken 
masses of the ruin, the sun from the west entered freely. 
Oona went slowl/, full of thought, up to the battlements, and 
looked out upon the familiar landscape, full of light and 
freshness, and all the natural sounds of the golden afternoon 
—the lapping of the water upon the rocks, the rustle of the 
wind in the trees, the far-on murmurs of life, voices cheer- 
ful, yet inarticulate from the village, distant sounds of horses 
and wheels on the unseen road, the bark of a dog, all the 
easy, honest utterance, unthought of, like simple breathing, 
of common life. For a moment the voice of her own 
thoughts was hushed within her, replaced by this soft com- 
bination of friendly noises. It pleased her better to stand 
here with the soft air about her, than with all the agitation 
of human influences to accompany the others. Yet human 
influence is more strong than the hold of nature ; and by and 
by she turned unconsciously from the landscape to the house, 
the one dark solid mass of habitable walls, repelling the sun- 
shine, while the tower, with its blunted outline above, and 
all the fantastic breaches and openings in the ruin below, 
gave full play to every level ray. The loch, all golden with 
the sunset, the shadows of the trees, the breath and utter- 
ance of distant life, gave nothing but refreshment and sooth- 
ing ; but the walls that were the work of men, and that for 
hundreds of years had gathered sombre memories about 
them, had an attraction more absorbing. A little beyond 
where she was standing, was the spot from which Miss Mil- 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


409 

nathort had fallen. Oona had heard the story vaguely all 
her life, and she had heard from Walter the meaning of it, 
only the other day. Perhaps it was the sound of a little 
crujnbling and precipitation of dust and fragments from the 
farther wall that brought it so suddenly to her memory ; but 
the circumstances in which she herself was, were enough to 
bring those of the other woman who had been as herself, be- 
fore her with all the vividness of reality. As young as her- 
self, and more happy, the promised bride of another Walter, 
everything before her as before Oona, love and life, the best 
that providence can give, more happy than she, nothing to 
disturb the gladness of her betrothal; and in a moment all 
over, all ended, and pain and helplessness, and the shadow 
of death substituted for her happiness and hope ! 

Oona paused, and thought 01 that tragedy with a great 
awe stealing over her, and pity which was intense in her re- 
alization of a story, in every point save the catastrophe, so 
like her own — penetrating her very soul. She asked herself 
which of the two it was who had suffered most — the faithful 
woman who lived to tell her own story, and to smile with 
celestial patience through her death in life, or the man who 
had struggled in vain, who had fallen under the hand of 
fate, and obeyed the power of outward circumstances, and 
been vanquished, and departed from the higher meaning of 
his youth? Oona thought with a generous sympathetic 
throbbing of her heart, 01 the one, but with a deeper pang of 
the other ; he who had not failed at all, so far as any one 
knew, who had lived and been happy as people say. She 
leant against the wall, and asked herself if anything should 
befall her, such as befell Miss Milnathort, whether her Wal- 
ter would do the same. Would he accept his defeat as the 
other had done, and throw down his arms and yield? She 
said no in her heart, but faltered, and remembered Katie. 
Yet no! That had been before, not after their hearts had 
met, and he had known what was in hers. No, he might be 
beaten down to the dust : he might rush out into the world, 
and plunge into the madness of life, or he might plunge more 
deeply, more darkly into the madness of despairing, and die. 
But he would not yield ; he would not throw down his arms 
and accept the will of the Other. Faulty as he was, and 
stained and prone to evil, this was what he would never do. 

It was strange that all this time she had scarcely asked 
herself who and what this other was who had so long kept a 
mysterious and miserable control over the family of Er- 
radeen. Though the very beginning of her knowledge of 
Walter had plunged her into the midst of that mystery, she 
had not dwelt upon it nor even tried to follow it. ^ There was 
no scepticism about the supernatural in her mind ; rather 
she was so natural that she accepted a being who stood before 
her according to his semblance, and required no explanations. 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


410 

She had seen and spoken with a man who inspired Walter 
Avith a profound and unreasonable terror. Oona, looking at 
him with eyes of unalarmed and misuspicious purity and all 
the kind and fearless freedom which belonged to her house, 
had neither hated him nor feared. She believed that there 
was in him something from which the others shrank, some 
power of giving pain and suggesting evil which justified 
their fear. But she did not share it. She was not afraid. 
There was not in her mind any alarm at the thought of en- 
countering in her own person this enemy, of whom she 
knew scarcely anything more than that he was the enemy of 
Walter’s race, the being of whom there was many a whisper 
about the loch, and the tradition of whose existence had 
come down from generation to generation. Could she but 
meet him, take that upon her own shoulders and spare 
Walter ! She said to herself that, God protecting her, there 
was no power on earth that could harm, and that she would 
not be afraid. She would look him in the face, she would 
hear all that he could say, and refuse, refuse, for herself and 
all the house that was henceforward to be hers, her consent 
to his sway. If there was in Walter’s mind the weakness 
of previous defeat, the susceptibility to temptation, which 
takes strength from the mind and confidence, there was in 
her no such flaw of nature. 

Up and spake she, Alice Brand, 

And made the holy sign, 

‘And if there’s blood on Richard’s hand, 

A stainless hand is mine.’ ” 

In the crowd of her thoughts— which were all mingled 
great and small, solemn and trifling, as all human thoughts 
are in high flood— this ballad floated with the rest through 
s Oona’s mind, with an aptness which gave her a momentary 
amusement, yet helped to increase her visionary exaltation. 
When this nigh excitement flagged a little it was with the 
thought that thus to act for Walter was impossible, was not 
Avhat was required of her. It was he who must fight though 
he was iveak, not she who felt herself so strong. But then, 
her hand in his, the whole force of her nature thrown into 
his, holding him up, breathing courage into his ear, into his 
soul ! Oona’s heart rose once more, slie felt herself like one 
inspired. That was the woman’s part, a harder part than if 
all the brunt of the fight had rested upon herself. But where 
was the wizard, where the black art, where tempter or 
demon, that could overcome a man thus supported and held 
up by love behind him, the jqint resistance of the two who 
were one ? 

While all these thoughts were passing through her mind, 
she had gone on, a feiv steps at a time, without thuiking or 


THE V/IZARirs SON. 


4TI 

perceiving where she went— till in the high flood and fervor 
of her spirit, suddenly looking up, she found herself on the 
grey edge of the wall, on the last ledge where any footing 
was possible, beyond the spot from which her predecessor 
had fallen. The sickening sensation with which she felt the 
crumbling masonry move beneath her foot, brought her to 
herself, and in a moment she realized the danger of her 
position. Another second and all her hopes and possibilities 
might have been over for ever. With a sudden recoil upon 
herself, Oona set her back against the edge of the parapet 
that remained, and endeavored to command and combat the 
sudden terror that seized hold upon her. She cast a keen 
look round her to. find out if there was any way of safety, 
and called out for help, and upon Walter ! Walter! though 
she felt it was vain. The wind was against her, and caught 
her voice, carrying it as if in mockery down the loch, from 
whence it returned only in a vague and distant echo : and 
she perceived that the hope of any one hearing and reaching 
her was futile indeed. Above her, on a range of ruin always 
considered inaccessible, there seemed to Oona a line of 
masonry solid enough to give her footing, though it had 
never been attempted before ; but necessity cannot wait for 
precedents. She was young and active and used to exercise, 
and her nerves were steadied by the strain of actual danger 
She made a spring from her insecure standing, feeling the 
ruin give way under her foot with the impulse, and with the 

g iddiness of a venture which was almost desperate, flung 
erself upon the higher level. When she had got there, it 
seemed to her incredible that she could have done it, and 
what was to be her next step she knew not, for the ledge on 
which she stood was very narrow, and there w^as nothing to 
hold by in case her head or courage should fail. 

Everything below and around was shapeless ruin, not to 
be trusted, all honeycombed with hollow places thinly covered 
over with the remains of fallen roofs and drifted earth and 
treacherous vegetation. Only in one direction was there any 
appearance of solidity, and that was above her, towards the 
tower which still stood firmly, the crown of the building, 
though no one had climbed up to its mysterious heights 
wuthin the memory of man. Round it was a stone balcony 
or platform, which was the spot upon which the mysterious 
light, so familiar to her, was periodically visible. Oona’s 
heart beat as she saw herself within reach of this spot. She 
had watched it so often from the safe and peaceful isle, with 
that thrill of awe and wonder, and half-terror, which gave 
an additional pleasure to her own complete and perfect 
safety. She made a few steps forward, and, putting out her 
hand with a quiver of all her nerves, took hold upon the cold, 
roughness of the lower ledge. The touch steadied her, yet 
woke an agitation in her frame, the stir of strong excitement ; 


412 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


for death lay below her, and her only refuge was in the very 
home of mystery, a spot untrodden of men. For the next 
few minutes she made her way instinctively without thought, 
holdmg by every projection which presented itself, feeling 
that there was no other hope or possibility before her. But 
when Oona found herself standing safe within the balustrade, 
close upon the wall of the tower, and had drawn breath and 
recovered a little from the exhaustion and strain— when her 


mind got again the upper hand and disentangled itself from 
the agitation of the body, the hurry and whirl of all her 
thoughts were beyond description. She paused as upon the 
threshold of a new world. What might be about to happen 
to her ? not to perish like the other, which seemed so likely 
a few minutes ago, but perhaps as tragic a fate ; perhaps the 
doom of all who tried to help the Methvens was awaiting 
her here. 

There is something in every extremb which disposes the ca- 
pricious human soul to a revolt and recoil. Oona carried on 
her self-discussion : but now she spoke aloud, to sustain her- 
self in her utter isolation. She laughed to herself, nature 
forcing its way through awe and alarm. “ Doom,” she said 
to herself, “there is no doom. That would mean that God 
was no longer over all. What He wills let that be done.” 
This calmed her nerves and imagination. She did not stop 
to say any prayer for her own safety. A certain scorn of 
safety, ^s of fear, and all the vulgar infidelities of superstition 
rose up in her mind. She raised her head high and went on. 
So long as God is, where is the fear ? and there is no doom 
but what comes out of His hand. And in the meantime 
everything was solid and safe beneath Oona’s feet. The 
tower stood strong, the pavement of the narrow platform 
which surrounded it was worn by time and weather, but per- 
fectly secure. Here and there a breach in the balustrade 
showed like fantastic fiamboyant work, but a regiment might 
have marched round it without disturbing a stone. 

Oona’s excitement was extreme. Her heart beat in her 


ears like the roaring of a torrent. She went on, raised beyond 
herself, with a strange conviction that there was some object 
in her coming, and that this which seemed so accidental was 
no accident at all, but perhaps— how could she tell ? — an 
ordeal, the first step in that career which she had accepted ; 
perhaps. Heaven grant it ! a substitution, something to be 
done for Walter to which her heart and strength rose. She 
put her hand upon the wall, and guided herself by it, feeling 
a support in the rough and time-worn surface, the stones of 
which had borne the assault of ages. Daylight was still 
bright around her, the last rays of the sun dazzling the loch 
below, lending a glory of reflection to the sky above, and 
sending up a golden sheen through the air from the blaze 
upon the water. Round the corner of the tower the wind 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


4T3 


blew freshly in her face from the hills^ reviving and en- 
couraging her. Nature was on her side in all its frankness 
and reality whatever mystery might be elsewhere. 

When she had gone half way round, on the side from 
which the roofs of Auchnasheen were visible among the 
trees, Oona suddenly stood still, her heart making, she 
thought, a pause as well as her feet— then with a bound be- 
ginning again in louder and louder pulsation. She had come 
to a doorway deep set in the wall, like the entrance of a 
cavern, with one broad much- worn step, and a heavy old door 
bound and studded with iron. She stood for a moment uncer- 
tain, trembling, a sense of the unforeseen and extraordinary 
flying to her brain Avith a bewildering pang of sensation- 
hesitating whether to pass it by, or make sure what Avas its 
meaning, yet scarcely hesitating, for by this time she began 
to feel the force of an impulse Avhich did not seem her own, 
and which she had no strength to resist. Going up the step, 
she found that the door was slightly ajar, and pushing it 
open found herself with another suffocating pause, then 
bound, of her heart, upon the threshold of a richly furnished 
room. She was aware of keeping her hold upon the door 
with a terrifying anticipation of hearing it close upon her, 
but otherAvise seemed to herself to have passed beyond her 
OAvn control and consciousness, and to be aware only of the 
Avonderful scene before her. The room was lighted with a 
mysterious abstract light from an opening in the roof, which 
showed the rough stone of the walls in great blocks, rudelv 
hewn, contrasting strangely Avith the heavy curtains with 
which they were nung round below. The curtains seemed 
of velvet, with panels of tapestry in mystic designs here and 
there. The floor Avas covered with thick and soft carpets. 
Fine instruments, strange and delicate, stood on stools and 
tables, some of them sloAvly revolving, like astronomical mo- 
dels. The curtained walls were hung Avith portraits, one of 
which she recognized as that of the last Lord Erradeen. And 
in the centre of allj supported on a table with a lamp burning 
in front of it, the light of which (she supposed) blown about 
by the sudden entrance of the air, so flickered upon the face 
that the features seemed to change and move, was the por- 
trait of Walter. Tire cry which she would have uttered at 
this sight died in Oona’s throat. She stood speechless, with- 
out poAver to think, gazing, conscious that this discovery was 
not for nothing, that there was something she must do, but 
unable to form a thought. 

The light fell upon the subdued colors of the hangings 
and furniture with a mystic paleness, without warmth; but 
the atmosphere was luxurious and soft, with a faint fra- 
grance in it. Oona held open the door, which seemed in the 
movement of the air which she had admitted, to struggle 
with her, but to which she held with a desperate grasp, and 


414 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


gazed spellbound. Was it the flickering of the lamp, or was 
it possible that the face of the portrait changed, that anguish 
came into the features, and that the eyes turned and looked 
at her appealing, full of misery, as Walter’s eyes had looked? 
It seemed to Oona that her senses began to fail. 

There was a movement in the tapestry : and from the 
other side of the room, some one put it aside and looked at 
her. She had seen him only in the night and darkness, but 
there was not another such that she snould mistake who it 
was. Once more her heart stood still : and then there came 
upon Oona an impulse altogether beyond her understanding, 
as it was beyond her control. 

She heard her own voice rise in the silence. She felt words 
come to her lips, and was aware that she launched them forth 
without comprehension, without a pause. What was she 
saying? Oaths such as she knew not how to say. “Accurs- 
ed wizard ! ” Was it she who said it, or were the words in 
the air. “ God confound thee! God destroy thee ! ” Wrath 
blazed up in her like a sudden flame. She struck at the del- 
icate machinery within her reach wildly with a sort of 
frenzv, and catching up something, she knew not what, 
struck the lamp, not knowing what she did. It fell with a 
crash, and broke, and the liquid which had supplied it burst 
forth, and ran blazing in great globules of light over the floor. 
A wild rush was in the air, whether of his steps towards her, 
whether of her own hurrying blood she could not tell. “ God 
destroy thee 1 God curse thee!” Was it she who spoke — 
looking at that pale awful countenance, launching curses 
which she did not understand ? All of Oona rushed back 
into the surging brain and beating heart that were possessed 
by something not herself. “No,” she cried in her own 
conscious voice, “ God pardon you, whoever you are,” and 
turned, and heard the great door flung behind her, and fled, 
and knew no more. 


CHAPTER XLVI. 

While Oona was standing on the verge of these mysteries 
a trial of a very different kind had fallen to Walter. They 
had exchanged parts in this beginning of their union. It was 
his to lead the two elder ladies into those rooms which were 
to him connected with the most painful moments of his life, 
but to them conveyed no idea beyond the matter of fact that 
they were more comfortably furnished and inhabitable than 
was to be expected in such a ruin. Even to Mrs. Methven, 
who was interrogating his looks all the time in an anxious 
endeavor to know what his feelings were, there seemed noth- 
ing extraordinary in the place save this. She seated herself 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


415 


calmly in the chair which he had seen occupied by so differ- 
ent a tenant, and looking smiling toward him, though al- 
ways with a question in her eyes, began to express her won- 
der why, with Auchnasheen so near, it had been thought 
necessary to retain a dwelling-place among these ruins ; but, 
since Walter did from time to time inhabit them, his mother 
found it pleasant that they were so habitable, so almost com- 
fortable, and answered old Macalister’s apologies for the 
want of a fire or any preparations for their coining with 
smiling assurances that all was very well, that she could not 
have hoped to find rooms in such careful repair. Mrs. For- 
rester was a great deal more effusive. She was pleased be- 
yond measure to see everything, which was what nobody on 
the loch had done for many years. Even on the occasion 
when the Williamsons invaded Lord Erradeen’s solitude 


they had not been admitted to any investigation of this part 
of the house ; and she examined everything with a flow of 
cheerful remark, divided between LordErradeen and his old 
servant, with whom, as with everybody on the- loch, she had 
the acquaintance of a lifetime. 

“ I must see your wife, Macalister,” she said, “ and make 
her my compliment on the way she has kept everything. It 
is really just a triumph, and I would like to know how she 
has done it. To keep down the damp even in my little house, 
where there are always fires going and every room full, is a 
constant thought — and how ^e does it here, where it is so 
seldom occupied — the rooms are just wonderfully nice 
rooms, Lord Erradeen, but I would not say they were a 
cheerful dwelling — above all for a young man like you.” 

“ No, they are not a very cheerful dwelling,” said Wal- 
ter, with a smile, which to his mother, watching him so 
closely, told a tale of pain which she did not understand in- 
deed, yet entered into with instinctive sympathy. The place 
began to breathe out suffering and mystery to her ; she could 
not tell why. It was cold, both in reality and sentiment, the 
light coming into it from the cold northeast, from the moun- 
tains which stood up dark and chill above the low shining of 
the setting sun. And the cold affected her from his eyes, 
and made her shiver. 

“ I think,” she said, “ we must not stay too long. The sun 
is getting low, and the cold ” 

“But where is Oona?” said Mrs. Forrester. “I would 
not like to go away till she has had the pleasure too. Oh yes, 
it is a pleasure. Lord Erradeen— fqr you see we cannot look 
out at our own door without the sight of your old castle b^ 
fore our eyes, and it is a satisfaction to know what there is 
within. She must have stayed outside among the ruins that 
she was always partial to. Perhaps Macalister will go and 

look for her, or Oh, Lord Erradeen, but I could not ask 

you to take that trouble.” 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


416 

“ My lord,” said old Macalister, aside. “ if it had been any 
other youn^ lady I would have been after her before now. 
Miss Oona is just wonderful for sense and judgment : but 

when I think upon yon wall ” 

I will go,” said* Walter. Amid all the associations of 
this place, the thought of Oona had threaded through every 
movement of his mind. He thought now that she had stayed 
behind out of sympathy, now that it was indifference, now— 
he could not tell what to think. But no alarm had crossed his 
thoughts. He made a rapid step toward the door, then 
paused with a bewildering sense that he was leaving two in- 
nocent women without protection, in a place full of dangers 
which they knew nothing of. Was it possible that his enemy 
could assail him through these unsuspecting, simple visitors ? 
He turned back to them with a strange pang of pity and re- 
gret, which he himself did not understand. “ Mother,” he 
said, “ you will forgive me— it is only for a moment ? ” 

“ Walter ! ” she cried, full of surprise ; then waved her 
hand to hiiw with a smile, bidding him, “ Go, go— and bring 
Miss Forrester.” Her attitude, her smile of perfect security 
and pleasure, went with him like a little picture as he w^ent 
down the spiral stairs. Mrs. Forrester was in it also, in all 
her pretty laded color and animation, begging him, “ Dear 
me, not to take the trouble ; for no doubt Oona was just at 
the door, or among the ruins, or saying a word to Hamish 
about the boat.” 

A peaceful little picture— no shadow upon it ; the light a 
little cold, but the atmosphere so serene and still. Strange 
contrast to all that he had seen there— the conflict, the an- 
guish, which seemed to have left their traces upon the very 
walls. He hurried downstairs with this in his mind, and a 
lingering of all his thoughts upon the wistful smiling of his 
mother’s face— though why at this moment he should dwell 
upon that was a wonder to himself. Oona was not on the 
grassy slope before the door, nor talkmg to Hamish at the 
landing-place, as her mother suggested. There was no trace 
of her among the ruins. Then, but not till then, Walter be- 
gan to feel a tremor of alarm. There came suddenly into his 
mind the recollection of that catastrophe of which he had 
been told in Edinburgh by its victim; it sent a shiver 
through him, but even yet he did not seriously fear, for 
Oona was no stranger to lose herself upon the dangerous 
places of the ruin. He went hurriedly up the steps to the 
battlements, where he himself had passed through so many 
internal struggles, thinking nothing less than to find her in 
one of the embrasures, where he had sat and looked out 
upon the loch. He had been startled, as he came out of the 
shadow of the house, by a faint cry, which seemed to issue 
from a distance, from the other extremity of the water, and 
which was indeed the cry for help to which Oona had given 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


417 


utterance when she felt the wall crumbling under her feet, 
which the wind had carried far down the loch, and which 
came back in a distant echo. Walter began to remember 
this cry as he searched in vain for any trace of her ; and 
when he reached the spot where the danger began, and saw 
the traces that some other steps had been there before him, 
and that a shower of crumbling mortar and fragments of 
stone had fallen, his heart leaped to his throat with sudden 
horror, but it was calmed by the instant re-assurance that 
had she fallen there he must have found her below. He 
looked round him bewildered, unable to conceive what had 
become of her. Where had she gone ? The boat lay at the 
landing-place, wdth Hamish in waiting ; not a flutter of. a 
veil was to be seen to afford any trace of her ; all was silence 
about and around. “ Oona ! ” he cried, but the wind caught 
his voice, too, and carried it away to the village on the other 
bank, to her own Isle away upon the glistening water, where 
Oona was not. Where was she ? His throat began to grow 
parched, his breath to labor with the hurry of his heart. He 
stood on the verge of the precipice of broken masonry, look- 
ing now to the stony pinnacles above, where nothing but a 
bird (he thought) could have found the way ; now over the 
ruined battlements to the ledge of rock upon which the 
waters rose and fell ; now down, with an agonized gaze, into 
the interior, where — thank Heaven for so much certainty !— 
she could not have fallen, but saw nothing, heard nothing, 
save the rustle of the awful silence which w'ounded his ear, 
and the vacancy that made his eyes ache with a feverish 
strain. 

The two mothers, meanwhile, talked calmly in the room 
below, where Macalister had lighted the fire, and where, in 
the cheerful blaze and glow, everything became more cozy 
and tranquil and calm. Perhaps even the absence of the 
young pair, whose high strain of existence at the moment 
could not but disturb the elder souls with sympathy, made 
the quiet waiting, the pleasant talk, more natural. Mrs. 
Methven had been deeply touched by her son’s all uniieeded 
apology for leaving her. She could have laughed over it, 
and cried, it was so kind, so tender of Walter, yet unlike 
him. the late awakening of thought and tenderness to which 
she had never been accustomed, which penetrated her with 
a sweet and delightful amusement as well as happiness. 
She had no reason to apprehend any evil, neither was Mrs. 
Forrester afraid for Oona. “ Oh no, she is well used to going 
about by herself. There is nobody near but knows my Oona. 
Her family and all her belongings have been on the loch, T 
I might say, since ever it was a loch ; and if any stranger 
took it upon him to say an uncivil word, there is neither 
man nor woman for ten miles round but would stand up for 
her— if such a thing could be,” Mrs. Forrester added, with 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


418 

dignity, “ which is just impossible, and not to be thought 
of. And as for rough roads or the hillside, I would trust 
her as soon as the strongest man. But I would like her to 
see the books and what a nice room Lord Erradeen has here, 
for often we have been sorry for him, and wondered what 
kind of accommodation there wAs, and what good it could 
do to drag the poor young man out of his comfortable house, 
if it was only once in the year 

“ And why should he come here once in the year ?” Mrs. 
Methven asked, with a smile. 

“ That is just the strange story ; but I could not take upon 
myself to say, for I know nothing except the common talk, 
which is nonsense, no doubt. You will never have been in 
the North before ? ” said Mrs. Forrester, thinking it judicious 
to change the subject. 

“ Never before,” Mrs. Methven replied, perceiving equally 
on her side that the secrets of the family were not to be 
gleaned from a stranger ; and she added, “ My son himself 
has not yet seen his other houses, though this is the second 
time he has come here.” 

“ It is to be hoped,” said the other, “ that now he will 
think less of that weary London, which I hear is just an 
endless traffic of parties and pleasure, and settle down to be 
a Scots lord. We must make excuses for a young man that 
naturally likes to be among his own kind, and finds more 
pleasure in an endless on-gomg than ladies always under- 
stand. Though I will not say but I like society very well 
myself, and would be proud to see my friends about ine, if it 
were not for the quiet way that Oona and I are living upon 
a little bit isle, which makes it always needful to consider 
the weather, and if there is a moon and all that ; and besides 
that, I have no gentleman in the house.” 

“ I never had a daughter,” said Mrs. Methven ; “ there 
can be no companion so sweet.” 

“You mean Oona? Her and me,” said Mrs. Forrester, 
with Scotch grammar and a smile, “we are but one ; and you 
do not expect me to praise myself ? When I say we have no 
gentleman in the house, it is because we cannot be of the use 
we would wish to our friends. To offer a cup of tea is just 
all I have in my power, and that is nothing to ask a gentle- 
man to \ but for all that it is wonderful how constantly we 
are seeing our neighbor^ especially in the summer-time, 
when the days are long. But bless me, what is that ? ” Mrs. 
Forrester cried. The end of her words was lost in a tumult 
and horror of sound such as Loch Homan had never heard 
before. 

Walter was half distracted with wonder and alarm. He 
had looked in every corner Avhere it was possible she could 
have taken refuge. He sprang now upon the very edge of 


rilE WIZARD'S SOiV. 


419 

the battlement, where there was precarious footing, though 
the platform within had crumbled awaj, and stood out there 
between earth and sky, eagerly scanning the higher points 
of the ruin. Could she have ventured there, up upon those 
airy heights, where, so far as he knew, no one nad climbed 
before for ages ? Every kind of horrible fear overtook him 
as he stood and searched everywhere with his eyes. She 
might have fallen through some of the crevices into the 
honey-comb of ruin, half filled up, yet affording pits and 
chasms innumerable. She might, which was more terrible 
still, have been met by the master of those gloomy ruins, and 
been driven to madness and disaster by tlie meetmg. He 
stood up, poised between earth and sky, the loch sheer below 
lapping against the foundations of the castle, the tower rising 
gray and inaccessible above. Already from the village his 
figure was seen in mid-air, rousing an idle little group round 
the inn-door to amazement and dismay. While he stood 
thus, it seemed to him that sounds suddenly broke forth from 
above— a voice bursting out, high, indignant, in words in- 
distinguishable to him, and the voice was not recognizable. 
It was a human voice, and quivered with passion and vehe- 
mence, but that was all. The horrible question crossed his 
mind. Was Oona there, at the mercy of his enemy? when 
suddenly, without an interval, the sound changed into Oona’s 
own voice, and into words of which he could distinguish one 
only, and that was pardon. And before he had time to draw 
breath there suddenly flashed upon Walter’s eyes a vision— 
was it madness coming upon him ? for it could not be ti ue. 
A vision— Oona, her dress and her hair streaming behind 
her, in the impulse of flight, passing like the wind within the 
ruinous balustrade, her light figure flashing across the dark 
openings, her foot scarcely touching the stones over which 
she flew. With a loud cry he threw out his arms to her, 
knowing it to be a vision, yet true. Behind her flying figure 
there flashed out, as if in pursuit, a great sudden blaze, the 
red, mad gleam of fire in the sunshine, fire that flammed up to 
the sky and rolled along the masonry in^ a liquid wave of 
flame. He flung himself toward her, ne did not know how, 
and clutched at her wildly as she came flying over the ridges 
of ruin. Then sense and hearing and consciousness itself 
were lost in a roar as of all the elements let loose— a great, 
dizzy upheaving as of an earthquake. The whole world 
darkened around him ; there was a sudden rush of air and 
whirl of giddy sensation, and nothing more. 


4^0 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


CHAPTER XLYII. 

The explosion startled the whole country for miles 

around. . , , i i 

The old castle was at all times the centre of the land- 
scape, standing sombre in its ruin amid all the smiling exist- 
ence of to-day. It flashed in a moment into an importance 
more wonderful, blazing up to the sky in fire and flame and 
clouds of smoke, like a great battle. The whole neighbor- 
hood, as far as sight could carry, saw this new wonder, and 
sprang into sudden excitement, alarm, and terror. Every 
soul rushed out of the village on the bank ; servants appeared, 
half frantic, in front of Auchnasheen, pushing out in skiffs 
and fishing-cobbles upon the water, which seemed to snare 
the sudden passion of alarm, and became but one great 
reflection, red and terrible, of the flames which seemed to 
burst in a moment from every point. Some yachtsmen 
whose little vessel had been lying at anchor, and who had 
been watching with great curiosity the moving figure on the 
height of the gallery romid the tower, and afterward the 
second adventurer on the battlement, with much laughing 
discussion among themselves as to the ghost and its move- 
ments, were suddenly brought to seriousness in a moment 
as the yacht bounded under their feet with the concussion of 
the air, and the idle sail flapping from the mast grew blood- 
red in the sudden glare. It was the work of another moment 
to leap into their boat and speed as fast as the oars could 
plough through the water to the rescue, if rescue were needed. 
Who could be there ? they asked each other. Only old Mac- 
alister with his wife, who, safe in the lower story, would have 
full time to escape. But then, what was that white figure 
on the tower ? The young men almost laughed again as they 
said to each other, The warlock-lord ! ” “ Tret’s hope he’s 
blown himself up, and made an end of all that nonsense,” 
said the sceptic of the party. But just then the stalwart 
boat-load came across a wild skiff dashing through the water, 
old Symington like a ghost in the stern, and red-haired Dun- 
can, with bare arms and throat, rowing as for life and death. 

“ My lord is there ! ” cried the old man, with Quivering 
lips. “ The leddies are there ! ” 

“And Hamish and Miss Oona!” fell stammering from 
Duncan, half dumb with horror. 

The young yachtsmen never said a word, but looked at 
each other and flew along over the blood-red water. Oona ! 
It was natural they should think of her first in her sweetness 
and youth. 


THE WIZARD'S SOH. 


421 

The two mothers, in their tranquil talk, sat still for a 
moment and looked at each other with pale awe on their 
faces when that wild tumult enveloped them, paralyzing 
every other sense. They thought they were lost, and instinct- 
ively looked in each other’s faces, c/nd put out their hands to 
eacii other. They were aLne— even the old servant had left 
them — a’" d there they sat, breathless, expecting death. For 
a moment the floor and wal’s so quivered i bout them that 
nothing else seemed possible ; but no catastrophe followed, 
and their faculties returned. They roee with one impulse 
and made their way together to the door, then, the awe of 
death passing, life rising in them, flew down the staircase 
with the lightness of youth, and ^ut to the air, which already 
was full of the red flicker of the rising flames. But once 
there, a worse thing befell these two poor women. They had 
been still in the face of death ; but now, with life saved, came 
a sense of something mo*:‘0 terrible than death. They cried 
out in one voice the names of their .children. “ My boy ! ” 
“ Oona ! ” Old Macalister, speechless, dragging his old wife 
after him, came put and joined them ; the tAvo old people 
looking like owls suddenly scared by the outburst of lurid 
light. 

“ Oh, what will be happening ?*” said the old woman, her 
dazed astonishment contrasting strangely with the excite- 
ment and terror of the others. 

Mrs. Forrester answered her in wild and feverish volu- 
bility. 

“Nothing will have happened,” she said. “Oona, my 
darling ! What would happen ? She knows her way : she 
would not go a step too far. Oh, Oona, where are you 1' why 
will you not answer me ? They will just be bewildered like 
ourselves, and she will be in a sore fright, but that will be 
for me. Oona! Oona! She will be frightened, but only for 
me. Oona ! O Hamish, man, can ye not find your young 
lady? The Are— I am not afraid of the fire. She will just 
be wild with terror — for me. Oona ! Oona ! Oona ! ” cried 
the poor lady, her voice ending in a shriek. 

Mrs. Methven stood by her side, but did not speak. Her 
pale face was raised to the flaming tower, which threw an 
illumination of red light over everything. She did not know 
that it was supposed to be inaccessib.e. For anything she 
knew, her boy might be there, perishmg wiihin her sight ; 
and she could do nothing. The anguish of tho helpless and 
hopeless gave her a sort of terrible calm. She looked at the 
flame as she might have looked at executioners who were 
putting her son to death. She had no hope. 

Into the midst of this distracted group came a sudden 
rush of men from the boats, which were arriving every min- 
ute, the young yachtsmen at their head. Mrs. Forrester 


422 


THE WIZARD'S SOJV. 


flung herself upon these young men, catching hold of them 
as they came up. 

“ My Oona’s among the ruins,” she said, breathlessly. 
“Oh, no fear but youll And her. Find her! And her! for 
I’m going out of my senses 1 think. I know that she’s safe, 
oh, quite safe ! but I’m silly, silly^ and my nerves are all 
wrong. Oh, Harry, for th . love of God ! and Patrick, Pat, 
rick, my fine lad ! And not a brother to look after my 
bairn ! ” 

“We are all her brothers,” cried the youths, struggling 
past the poor lady, who clung to them and hindered their 
progress, her voice coming ^rill through the roar of the 
flames and the bustle and commotion below. Amid this 
tumult her piercing “ Oona ! Oona ! came in from time to 
time, sharp with the derision of tragedy for anything so in- 
effectual and vain. Before many minutes had passed, the 
open space in front of the house which stood intact and as 
yet unthreatened was crowded with men, none of them, 
however, knowing what to do, nor, indeed, what had hap- 
pened. The information that Lord Erradeen and Oona were 
missing was handed about among them, repeated with shak- 
ings of th"' head to every new-comer. Mrs. Methven stand- 
ing in the midst, whom nobody knew, received all the com- 
ments like so many stabs into her heart: “ Was it them that 
was seen on the walls just before? Then nothing could 
have saved them.” The walls all breached to the loch : no 
cannon could have done it cleaner. It’s there you’ll find 
them.” “Find them! Oh, lion! oh, bon! The bodies of 
them. Let’s hope their souls are in a better place.” The un- 
fortunate mother heard what everybody said. She stood 
among strangers, with nobody who had any compassion 
upon her, receiving over and over again the assurance of his 
fate. 

The first difficulty here, as in every other case of the kind, 
was that no one knew what to do ; there were hurried con- 
sultations, advices called out on every hand, suggestions — 
many of them impossible — but no authoritative guide to say 
what was to be don 3 . Mrs. Methveuj turning her miserable 
looks from one to another, saw standing by her side a man 
of commanding appearance, who seemed to take no share in 
either advice or action, but stood calmly looking on. He 
was so different from the rest that she appealed to him in- 
stinctively. 

“Oh, sir,” she cried, “ you must know what is best to be 
done— tell them.” 

He started a little when she spoke ; his face, when he 
turned it toward her, was full of strange expression. There 
was sadness in it, and mortification, and woiuided pride. 
She said after that he was like a man disappointed, de- 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


423 

feated, full of dejection and indignation. He gave her a look 
of keen wonder, and then said, with a sort of smile,— 

“ Ah, that is true ! ” Then in a moment his voice was 
heard over the crowd. “ The thing to be done,” he said, in 
a voice which was not loud, but which immediately silenced 
all the discussions and agitations round, “ is to clear away 
the ruins. The fire will not burn downward— it has no food 
that way— it will exhaust itself. The young lady fell with 
the wall. If she is to be found, she will be found there.” 

The men around all crowded about the spot from which 
the voice came. 

“ Wha’s that that’s speaking ? ” 

“ I see nobody.” 

“ What were you saying, sir ? ” 

“ Whoever it is, it is good advice,” cried young Patrick 
from the yacht. “ Harry, keep you the hose going on the 
house ; I’ll take the other work ; and thank you for the 
advice, whoever you are.” 

Mrs. Forrester, too, had heard this voice, and the com- 
mand and calm in it gave to her troubled soul a new hope. 
She pushed her way through the crowd to the spot from 
whence it came. 

“ Oh,” she cried, “ did you see my Oona fall ? Did you 
see my Oona? Ko, no, it would not be her that fell. You 
are just deceived. Where is my Oona? Oh, sir, tell them 
where she is that they may find tier, and we’ll pray for you 
on our bended knees, night and morning, every day.” 

She threw herself on her knees as she spoke, on the grass, 
putting up her quivering, feverish hands. The other mother, 
with a horror which she felt even in the midst of her misery, 
saw the man to whom this heartrending prayer was ad- 
dressed, without casting even a glance at the suppliant at 
his feet, or with any appearance of interest in the proceed- 
ings he had advised, turn quietly on his heel and walk away. 
He walked slowly across the open space, and disappeared, 
upon the edge of the water with one glance upward to the 
blazing tower, taking no more note of the anxious crowd 
collected there than if they had not existed. Nor did any 
one notice this strange spectator going away at the height 
of the catastrophe, when everybody far and near was roused 
to help. The men running hurriedly to work did not seem 
to see him. The two old servants of the house, Symington 
and Macalister, stood crowding together out of reach of the 
stream of water which was being directed upon the house. 
But Mrs. Methven took no note of them. The only thing 
that touched her with a strange surprise in the midst of her 
anguish was to see that, while her Walter’s fate still hung 
in the balance, there was one who could calmly go away. 

By this time the sun had set ; the evening, so strangely 
different from any other that ever had fallen on the loch, 


424 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


was beginning to darken on the hills, bringing out with 
wilder brilliancy the flaming of the great fire, which turned 
the tower of Kinloch-houran into a lantern, and blazed up- 
ward in a great pennon of crimson and orange against the 
blue of the skies. For miles down the loch the whole popu- 
lation was out upon the roads gazing at this w^onderful 
sight ; the hillsides were crimsoned by the reflection, as if 
the heather had bloomed again ; the water glowed red under 
the cool calm of the evening sky. Kound about Birkenbraes 
was a little crowd, the visitors and servants occupying eyery 
spot from which tnis portent could be seen, and Mr. William- 
son himself, with his daughter, standing at the gate to glean 
what information might be attainable from the passers-by. 
Katie, full of agitation, unable to undergo the common 
babble inside, had walked on, scarcely knowing what she 
did, in her indoor dress, shivering with cold and excitement. 
They had all said to each other that there could be po dan- 
ger to life in that uninhabited place. 

“ Toots, no danger at all ! ” Mr. Williamson had said, 
with great satisfaction in the spectacle. “Old Macalister 
and his wife are just like rats in their hole, the fire will 
never come near them ; and the ruin will be none the worse 
— ^it will just be more a ruin than ever.” 

There was something in Katie’s mind which revolted 
against this easy treatment of so extraordinary a catastrophe. 
It seemed to her connected, she could not tell how, wdth the 
scene which had passed in her own room so short a time be- 
fore. But for shame she w^ould have walked on to Auchna- 
sheen to make sure that Walter was in no danger. But what 
would he think of her— what would everybody think? 
Katie went on, however, abstracted from herself, her eyes 
upon the blaze in the distance, her heart full of disturbed 
thoughts. All at once she heard the firm, quick step of some 
one advancing to meet her. She looked up eagerly ; it might 
be Walter himself — ^it might be— When she saw who it 
was, she came to a sudden pause. Her limbs refused to 
carry her, her very breath seemed to stop. She looked up 
at him and trembled. The question that formed on her lips 
could not get utterance. He was perfectly calm and cour- 
teous, with a^mile that bewildered ner and filled her with 
terror. 

“Is there anyone in danger?” he said, answering as if 
she had spoken. “ I think not. There is no one in danger 
now. It is a fine spectacle. We are at liberty to enjoy it 
without any drawback— now.” 

“ Oh. sir,” said Katie, her very lips quivering, “you sneak 
strangely. Are you sure that there was no one there ? 

“ I am sure of nothing,” he said, with a strange smile. 

And then Mr. Williamson, delighted to see a stranger, 
drew near. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


425 

“You need not be so keen with your questions, Katie. ' 
Of course it is the gentleman we met at Kinloch-houran. 
Alas ! poor Kinloch-houran ; we will never meet there again. 
Yon will just stay to dinner now that we have got you? 
Come, Katie, where are your manners? You say nothing. 
Indeed We will consider it a great honor. Just ourselves 
and a few people that are staying in the house ; and as for 
dress, what does that matter? It is a thing- that happens 
everyday. Neighbors in the country will look in without 
preparation j and for my part, I say, always, the more the 
merrier,” said the open-hearted millionaire. 

The stranger’s face lighted up with a gleam of scornful 
amusement. 

“ The kindness is great ” he said, “ but I am on my way 
to the other end of the loch.” 

“You are never walking?” cried Mr. Williamson. 

“ Lord bless us ! that was a thing that used to be done in my 
young days, but nobody thinks of now. Your servant will 
nave gone on with your baggage ? and you would have a 
delicacy — I can easily understand— in asking for a carriage 
in the excitement of the moment; but ye shall not walk 
past my house, where there are conveyances of all kinds 
that it is just a charity to use. Now, I’ll take no denial ; 
there's the boat ; in ten minutes they’ll get up steam. I had 
ordered it, ready to send up to Auchnasneen for news. But 
as a friend would never be leaving if the family was in 
trouble, it is little use to do that now. I will just make, a 
sign to the boat, and they’ll have ye down in no time ; it 
will be the greatest pleasure, if you are sure you will not 
stay to your dinner in the meantime, which is what I would 
like best.” 

He stood looking down upon them both from his great 
height ; his look had been sad and grave when he had met 
Katie, a look full of expression which she could not fathom. 
There came now a gleam of amusement over his counte- 
nance. He laughed out. 

“ That would be admirable,” he said, offering no thanks, 

“ I will take your boat,” like a prince according rather than 
receiving a favor. 

Mr. Williamson looked at his daughter with a confused 
air of astonishment and perplexity, but he sent a messenger 
off m a boat to warn the steamer, which lay with its light 
glimmering white in the midst of the red reflections on the 
loch. The father and daughter stood there silenced, and 
with a strange sensation of alarm, beside this stranger. 
They exchanged another frightened look. 

“You’ll be going a long journey,” Mr. Williamson said, 
faltering, scarcely knowing what he said. 

“In any case,” said the stranger, “I am leaving this 
place. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


426 

He seemed to put aside their curiosity as something 
trifling, unworthy to be answered, and, with a wave of his 
hand to them, took the path toward the beach. 

They turned and looked after him, drawing close to each 
other for mutual comfort. It was twilight, when everything 
is confusing and uncertain. They lost sight of him., then 
saw him again, like a tall pillar on the edge of the water. 
There was a confusion of boats coming and going, m which 
they could not trace whither he went or how. 

Katie and her father stood watching, taking no account 
of the progress of time, or of the cold wind of the night 
which came in gusts from the hills. They both drew a long 
sigh of relief when the steamer was put in motion, and went 
on down the loch with its lights like glowworms on the 
yards and the masts. Nor did they say a word to each other 
as they turned and went home. When inquiries were made 
afterward, nothing but the most confused account could be 
given of the embarkation. The boatmen had seen the 
stranger, but none among them would say that he had con- 
veyed him to the steamer ; and on the steamer the men were 
equally confused, answering at random, with strange glances 
at each other. Had they carried that passenger down to the 
foot of the loch? Not even Katie’s keen questioning could 
elicit a clear reply. 

But when the boat had steamed away, carrying into the 
silence the rustle of its machinery and the twinkling of its 
lights, there was another great explosion from the tower of 
Kmlochhouran ; a loud report, which seemed to roar away 
into the hollows of the mountams and came back in a thous- 
and rolling echoes. A great column of flame shot up into 
the sky, the stones fell like a canonade, and then all was 
darkness and silence. The loch fell into sudden gloom ; the 
men who were laboring at the ruins stopped short, and 
groped about to find each other through the dust and smoke 
which hung over them like a cloud. The bravest stood still 
as if paralyzed, and for a moment, through all this strange 
scene of desolation and terror, there was but one sound aud- 
ible, the sound of a voice which cried “ Oona ! Oona ! ” — now 
shrill, now hoarse with exhaustion and misery— “ Oona I 
Oona ! ” to earth and heaven. 


CHAPTER XLYIII. 

When the curious and the ineflicient dropped away, as 
they did by degrees as night fell, there were left the three 
youths from the yacht, Hamish, Duncan, and two or three 
men from the village— enough to do a greater work than that 
which lay before them : but the darkness and the consterna- 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


427 


tion, and even their very eagerness and anxiety, confused 
their proceedings. Such lamps as they could get from Mac- 
alister were fastened up among the heaps of ruins, and made 
a series of wild Kembrandt-like pictures in the gloom, but 
afforded little guidance to their work. The masses of ma- 
sonry which thqy labored to clear away seemed to increase 
rather than diminish under their picks and spades— new 
angles of the wall giving away when they seemed to have 
come nearly to the foundation. And now and then from 
above a mass of stones penetrated through and through by 
the fire, and kept in their place only by mere balance, woum 
topple down without warning dangerously near their heads, 
ri^iing the very lives of the workers ; upon whom discour- 
agement gained as the night wore on, and no result was 
obtained. After a while, with a mournful unanimity they 
stopped work and consulted in whispers what was to be done. 
Not a sound had replied to their cries. They had stopped a 
hundred times to listen, one more imaginative than the rest 
thinking he heard an answering cry ; but no such response 
had ever come— how was it possible, from under the chok- 
ing, suffocating mass, which rolled down upon them as they 
worked, almost stopping their breath? They gave up 
altogether in the middle of the night, in dejection and hope- 
lessness. The moon had risen, and shone all round them, 
appearing through the great chasms in the wall, making a 
glory upon the loch, but lending no help here, the shadow of 
the lower part of the house lying back over the new-made 
ruin. What was the use ? No mortal could have fallen be- 
low those powdery heaps and yet live. They stood discon- 
solately consulting on the possibilities. If Walter and Oona 
were under those heaps 01 ruin it was impossible that they 
could be alive, and the men asked each other, shaking their 
heads, what chance there was of any of those fortunate 
accidents which sometimes save the victims of such calamity. 
The wall had been already worn by time ; there were no 
beams, no archways, which could have sheltered them; 
everything had come down in one mass of ruin. After many 
and troubled discussions, they prepared reluctantly to 
abandon the hopeless work. “ Perhaps in the morning ”— 
it was all that any one could say. The young yachtsmen 
made a last effort, calling out Walter’s name. “If you can 
speak, for God's sake speak ! any sign, and we’ll have you 
out. Erradeen! Erradeen!” they cried. But the silence 
was as that of the grave. A fall of powdery fragments now 
and then from the heap, sometimes a great stone solemnly 
bounding downward from point to point, the light blown 
about by the night air lighting up the dark group, and the 
solitary figure of Hamish, apart from them, who was work- 
ing with a sort of rage, never pausing, pulling away the 
stones with his hands. This was all ; not a moan, not a cry. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


428 

not a sound of existence under those shapeless piles of ruin. 
The only thing that broke the silence, and which came now 
with a heartrending monotony, because almost mechanical, 
was the cry of “Oona! Oona!” which Oona’s mother, 
scarcely conscious, sent oat into the night. 

The men stole softly round the corner of the house which 
remained untouched to get to their boats, stealing away like 
culprits, though there was no want of good-will in them. But 
they were not prepared for the scene that met them there. 
I'he little platform before the door and the landing-place 
.were bright almost as day with the shining of the moon ; the 
water one sheet of silver, upon which the boats lay black ; 
the grassy space below all white and clear. In the midst of 
this space, seated on a stone, was Mrs. Methven. She had 
scarcely stirred all night. Her companion in sorrow had 
been taken into the shelter of the house ; but she, unknown 
and half forgotten, and strong with all the vigor of misery, 
had remained there, avoiding speech of anyone. With all 
her senses absorbed in listening, not a stroke had escaped 
her, scarcely a word; for a longtime she had stood and 
walked about, not asking a question, observing, seeing, hear- 
ing all that wa-s done. But, as the awful hours went on, she 
had dropped down upon this rough seat, little elevated above 
the ground, where her figure now struck the troubled gaze of 
the young men, as if it had been that of a sentinel w^atching 
to see that they did not abandon their work. No such 
thought was in. her mind. She was conscious of every move- 
ment they had made. For a moment she had thought that 
this call upon her son meant that they had found some trace 
of him: but that was a mere instantaneous thrill, which 
her understanding was too clear to continue to entertain. 
She had said to herself from the beginning that there was 
no hope ; she had said from the first what the men had said 
to each other reluctantly after hours of exertion. What was 
the good, since nothing could be done? 

Yet all the while as she said this she was nursing within 
her bosom, concealing it even from her own consciousness, 
covering up the smouldering, dying fire in her heart, a hope 
that would not altogether die. She would not even go to- 
ward the workers when they called out her son’s name to 
know what it was ; but only waited— waited with a desperate, 
secret, half-heathen thought that perhaps if she did not cry 
and importune, but was silent, letting God do what He 
would. He might yet relent and bring her back her boy. Oh, 
be pqtient ; put on at least the guise of patience ; and per- 
haps He would be touched by the silence of her misery— He 
who had not heard her prayers ! She sat going over a hun- 
dred things in her heart : that Walter should have come back 
to her, called her to him, opened his heart to her. as a prep- 
aration for being thus snatched from her forever I She said 


THE WIZARHS SON.^ 


429 

to herself that by-and-by she would thaink God for this great 
mercy, and that she had thus found her son again, if only 
for two days ; but in the mean time her heart bled all the 
more, for the thought and bereavement became more im- 
possible, more intolerable, even from that which afterward 
would make it almost sweet. As she kept that terrible vigil, 
and heard the sound of the implements with which— oh, 
what was it ?— not him, his body, the mangled remains of 
him, were being sought, she seemed to see him standing be- 
fore her. leaning upon her, the strong on the weak, pouring 
his troubles into her bosonij as he had not done since he was 
a child ; and now he was lying crushed beneath those stones. 
Oh no, no ! Oh no, no ! it was not possible. God was not 
like that, holding the cup of blessing to a woman’s lips and 
then snatching it away. And then, with an effort she would 
say to herself what she had said from the first, what she had 
never wavered in saying, that there was no hope. How 
could there be any hope? crushed beneath terns of falling 
stones— oh, crushed out of recognition, out of humanity ! her 
imagination spared her nothing. When they found him 
they would tell her it Avas better, better, she the mother that 
bore him, that she should not see him again ! And all the 
while the moon shining and God looking on. She was cal- 
lous to the cry that came continually, mechanically, now 
stronger, now fainter, from the rooms above ; “ Oona, Oona ! ” 
Sometimes it made her impatient. Why should the woman 
cry, as if her voice could reach her child under those masses 
of ruin ? And she could not cry Avho had lost her all — her 
only one ! Why should the other have that relief and she 
none— nor any hope ? But all the sounds about her caught 
her ear with a feverish distinctness. When she heard the 
steps approaching after the pause of which she had divined 
the meaning, they seemed to go over her heart, treading it 
doAvn into the dust. She raised her head and looked at them 
as they came up, most of the band stealing behind to escape 
her eye. “ I heard you,” she said, “ call— my son.” 

“ It was only to try ; it was to make an effort ; it was a 
last chance.” 

“ A last — ” though she was so composed there was a catch 
in her breath as she said this word ; but she added, with the 
quiet of despair, “You are going away ? ” 

The young man who was the spokesman stood before her 
like a culprit, with his cap in his hand. 

“ My brothers and I,’^ he said, “ would gladly stay if it 
was any use ; but there is no light to work by, and I fear— I 
fear— that by this time ” 

“ There is no more hope ? ” she said. “ I have no hope. 1 
never had any hope.” 

The young man turned aAvay with a despairing gesture, 
and then returned to her humbly, as if she had been a queen. 


43 ^ 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


“We are all grieved— more grieved than words can say ; 
and gladly would we stay if we could be of any use. But 
what can we do ? for we are all convinced ” 

“No me ! ” cried Hamish, coming forward into the moon- 
light. “ No me ! ” His bleeding hands left marks on his 
forehead as he wiped the heavy moistui’e from it ; his eyes 
shone wildly beneath his shaggy brows. “ I was against it,” 
he cried, “ from the first ! I said, what would they be doing 
here ? But convinced, that I never 'will be, no till I find— 
Mem, if ye tell them they’ll bide. Tell them to bide. As 
sure as God is in heaven, that was all her thought, we will 
find her yet.” 

The other men had slunk away, and were softly getting 
into their boats. The three young yachtsmen alone waited, 
a group of dark figures about her. She looked up at them 
standing together in the moonlight, her face hollowed out as 
if by the work of years. 

“ He is my only one,” she said, “ my only one. And you 
—you— you are all the sons of one mother.” 

Her voice had a shrill anguish in it, insupportable to hear ; 
and when she paused there came shrilly into the air, with a 
renewed passion, “ Oona ! Oona ! ” the cry that had not ceased 
for hours. The young man who was called Patrick flung his 
clinched hand into the air ; he gave a cry of pity and pain 
unendurable. 

“ Go and lie you down an hour or two,” he said to the 
others, “ and come back with the dawn. Don’t say a word. 
I’ll stay ; it’s more than a man can bear.” 

When the others were gone, this young fellow implored 
the poor lady to go in, to lie down a little, to try and take 
some rest. What good could she do, he faltered, and she 
might want all her strength for to-morrow ; using all those 
familiar pleas with which the miserable are mocked. Some- 
thing like a smile Came over her wan face. 

“You are very kind,” she said ; “ oh, very kind ! ” but no 
more. But when he returned and pressed the same argu- 
ments upon her, she turned away almost with impatience. 
“ I will watch with my son to-night,” she said, putting him 
away with her hand. And thus the night passed. 

Mrs. Forrester had been taken, only half conscious, into 
Walter’s room early in the evening. Her cry had become 
mechanical, not to be stopped ; but she, it was hoped, was but 
half aware of what was passing, the unwonted and incredible 
anguish having exhausted her simple being, unfamiliar with 
suffering. IVIr. Cameron, the minister from the village, had 
come over on the first news, and Mysie from the Isle to take 
care of her mistress. Together they kept watch over the 
poor mother, who l?iy sometimes with her eyes half closed 
in a sort of stupor, sometimes springing up wildly to go to 
Oona, who was ill and wanting her, she cried, distraught. 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


431 

‘ Oona ! Oona! ” she continued to cry through all this. Mysie 
had removed her bonnet, and her light, faded hair was all 
dishevelled, without the decent covering of the habitual cap, 
her pretty color gone. Sorrow seems to lie harder on such a 
gentle soul. It is cruel ; there is nothmg in it that is akin to 
the mild level of a being so easy and common. It was tor- 
ture that prostrated the soul— not the passion of love and 
anguish which gave to the other mother the power of abso- 
lute self-control, and strength which could enclure all things. 
Mr. Cameron himself, struck to the heart— for Oona was as 
dear to him as a child of his own— gave up his longing to be 
out among the workers in order to soothe and subdue her ; 
and though she scarcely understood what he was saying, his 
presence did soothe her. It was natural that the minister 
should be there, holding her up in this fiery passage, though 
she could not tell how. 

And thus the night went on. The moonlight faded 
outside; the candles paled and took a sickly hue within 
as the blue dawn came stealing over the world. At that 
chillest, most awful moment of all the circle of time, Mrs. 
Forrester had sunk into half unconsciousness. She was 
not asleep, but exhaustion had almost done the part of sleep, 
and she lay on the sofa in a stupor, not moving, and for the 
first time intermitting that terriblp cry. The minister stole 
downstairs in that moment of repose. He was himself an 
old man, and shaken beyond measure by the incidents of the 
night. His heart was bleeding for the child of his spirit, the 
yoimg creature to whom he had been tutor, counsellor, almost 
father, from her childhood. He went out with his heart full, 
feeling the vigil insupportable in the miserable room above, 
yet almost less supportable when he came out to the company 
of the gray hills growing visible, a stern circle of spectators 
round about, and realized with a still deeper pang the terrible, 
unmitigated fact of the catastrophe. It was with horror that 
he saw the other mother sitting patient upon the stone out- 
side. He did not know her, and had forgotten that such n 
person existed as Lord Erradeen’s mother. Had she been 
there all night ? “ God help us ! ’ he said to himself : “ hew 
selfish we are, even to the sharers of our calamity ! ” She 
looked up at him as he passed, but said nothing. And what 
could he say to her ? For the first time he behaved himself 
like a coward, and fled from his duty ; for what could he say 
to comfort her, and why insult her misery with vain attempts ? 
Young Patrick had pressed shelter and rest upon her, being 
young and knowing no better. But the minister could not 
tell Walter’s mother to lie down and rest; to think of her 
own life. What was her life to her ? He passed her by with 
the acute and aching sympathy which bears a share of the 
suffering it cannot relieve ; for his own suffering was sore. 
“ Oona, Oona,” he cried to himself, silently, in his heart, as 


432 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


her mother had done aloud— his child, his nursling, the 
flower of his flock. Mysie had told him in the intervals when 
her mistress was quiet, in whispers and with tears, of all that 
had happened lately, and of Oona’s face, that was like the 
Sabbath of the Sacrament, so grave, yet so smiling, as she 
left the Isle. This went to the old minister’s heart. He 
passed the ruin where Hamish was still plucking uselessly, 
half stupified, at the stones, and Patrick, with his back 
against the unbroken wall, had fallen asleep in utter weari- 
ness. Mr. Cameron did not linger there, but sought a place 
out of sight of man, where he could weep, for he was old, and 
his heart was too full to do without some natural relief. 

He went through a ruined doorway to a place where all 
was still green and intact, as it had been before the explo- 
sion ; the walls standing, but trees grown in the deep coil 
which covered the old stone floor. He leaned his white head 
against the roughness of the wall^ and shed the tears that 
made his old eyes heavy, and relieved his old heart with 
prayer. He had prayed much all the night through, but 
with distracted thoughts, and eyes bent upon the broken- 
hearted creature by vdiose side he watched. But now he was 
alone with the great and closest Friend, He to whom all 
things can be said, and who understands all. “Give us 
strength to resign her to .Thee,” he said, pressing his old 
cheek against the damp and cold freshness of the stones, 
which were wet with other dews than those of nature, with 
the few concentrated tears of age, that mortal dew of suffer- 
ing. The prayer and the tears relieved his soul. He lifted 
his head from the wall, and turned to go back again — if, per- 
haps, now fresh from his Master’s presence he might nnd a 
word to say to the other woman who all night long, like 
Rizpah, had sat silent and watched her son. 

But as he turned to go away it seemed to the minister 
that he heard a faint sound. He supposed nothing but that 
some of the men who had been working had gone to sleep in 
a room, and were waking and stirring to the daylight. He 
looked round, but saw no one. Perhaps even then there came 
across the old man’s mind some recollection of the tales of mys- 
tery connected with this house ; but in the presence of death 
and sorrow he put these lesser wonders aside. Nevertheless, 
there was asouni, faint, but yet a human movement. The 
old stone floor was deep under layers of soil upon which 
every kind of h mbage and several trees grew ; but in the 
corner of the wall against which he been leaning the gather- 
ed soil had been hollowed away by the droppings from above, 
and a few inches of the original floor had been exposed. The 
old i-an s heart began to beat with a bewildering possibility. 
But he d; red not allow hinself to think of it ; he said to him- 
self that it must be a bird, a beast, something imnriso^ied in 
some crevice. He listened. God! was that a' moan! He 


THE WIZARHS SON, 


433 


turned and rushed with the step of a hoy to where Patrick 
sat dozing, and Hamish, stupiUed, worked on mechanically. 
He clutched the one out of his sleep, the other from his 
trance of exhaustion— “ Come here ! come here ! and listen. 
What is this ? ” the old minister said. 


CHAPTER XLIX. 

OoNA, flying from the catastrophe which she did not un- 
derstand, which had happened behind her, with neither 
leisure nor clearness of mind to see where her steps were 
falling, had yet been carried by her excitement, she knew not 
how, over all the dangers of the uncertain path until she 
came near enough to Walter, who stood out relieved against 
the blue sky and the background of the loch, to throw her- 
self, her strength exhausted, imo his arms, which were held 
out to save her. She remembcici nothing more— nor was he 
much better aware of whati happened. The sickening sense 
of a great fall, the whirl and resistance of the air rushing 
madly against him through the void, the sensation mounting 
up to his brain, the last rtronghold of consciousness, in a 
painful rush of blo'^d and thrill of feeling, as if life were to 
end there, were all that were known to him. What happen- 
ed really was that, holding Oona insensible in his arms, he 
was carried downward with the slide and yielding of the part 
of the ruin on which he was standing, detached by his own 
weight, rather than thrown violently down by the action of 
the explosion. The force of the fall, however, was so great, 
and the mass falling with them so heavy, that some of the 
stones, already very unsteady, of the pavement below gave 
way, and carried them under ground to one of the subter- 
ranean cellars half filled up with soil which ran under the 
whole area of the old castle. How long they lay there un- 
able to move, and, for some part of the time at least, entirely 
without consciousness, Walter could never tell. When he 
recovered his senses he was in absolute darkness and in con- 
siderable pain. Oona had fallen across him, and the shock 
had thus been broken. It was a moan from her which woke 
him to life again. But she made no reply to his first dis- 
tracted question, and only gave evidence of life by a faint lit- 
tle utterance from time to time— too faint to be called a cry— 
a breath of suftering, no more. The suffocating, terrible 
sensation of the darkness, a roar of something over them 
like thunder, the oppression of breathing which was caused 
by the want of atmosphere, all combined to bewilder his fac- 
ulties and take away both strength and will to do anything 
more than lie there quietly and gasp out the last breath. 

But it is only when life is vanishing from our grasp that 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


434 

its price and value becomes fully known, even to those who, 
in other circumstances, might have been ready enough to 
throw it aw’ay. Walter was roused by feeling in Oona an 
unconscious struggle for breath. She raised first one hand, 
then another, as if to push away something which was stifling 
her; and he began to perceive, in the vagueness of his 
awakening consciousness, that her life depended upon his 
exertions. Then, his eyes becoming accustomed to the dark- 
ness, he caught a faint ray of light, so attentuated as to be no 
more than a thread in the solid gloom. To drag himself to- 
ward this, and with himself the still more precious burden 
thus in utter helplessness confided to him, was a more ter- 
rible work than Walter in all his life had ever attempted be- 
fore. There was not room to stand upright, and his limbs 
were so shaken and aching that he could scarcely raise him- 
self upon them ; and one of his arms was useless, and when 
he tried to raise it gave him the most exquisite pain. It 
seemed hours before he could succeed in dragging Oona to 
the little opening, a mere crevice between the sWies. through 
which the thread of light had come. When he had cleared 
the vegetation from it, a piercing cold breath came in and 
revived him. He raised Oona in his arms to the air, but the 
weight of her unconsciousness was terrible to iiiin in his 
weaxened condition, and, though she began to breathe more 
easily, she was not sufficiently recovered to give him any 
help. 

Thus she lay, and he crouched beside her trying to think, 
for he could not tell how long. He heard sounds above him, 
indeed, but the roar of the failing stones drowmed the human 
noises, and his brain was too much elmded to think of the 
search which must be going on overhead for his companion 
and himself. The worst of it all was the dazed condition of 
his brain, so that it was a long time before • he could put one 
thing to another and get any command of his thoughts. In 
all likelihood consciousness did not fully return until the 
time when the men above in despair relinquished their work 
—for some feeble sense of cries and human voices penetrated 
the darkness j but so muffied and far off that in the dimness 
of his faculties he did not in any way connect them Avith 
himself, nor think of attempting any reply. Perhaps it was, 
though he was not aware that lie heard it, the echo of his 
own name that finally brought him to himself ; and then all 
his dulled faculties centred, not in the idea of anj^ help at 
hand, but in that of fighting a way somehow to a possible 
outlet. How was he to do it? The pain of his arm ivas so 
great that by times he had nearly fainted Avitli mere bodily 
suffering, and his mind fluctuated from moment to moment 
—or was it not rather from hour to hour— ivith perplexity 
and vain endeavor. He was conscious, however, though he 
had not given any meaning to the sounds he heard, of the 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


435 

strange increase of silence which followed upon the stopping 
of the work. Something now and then like the movements 
of a bird (was it Hamish working wildly above, half mad, 
half stupefied, unable to be still V) kept a little courage m 
him, but the silence and darkness were terrible, binding his 
very soul. 

It was then that he had the consolation of knowing that 
his companion had come to herself. Suddenly, a hand gro- 
ping found his, and caught it ; it was Iris wounded arm, and 
the pain went like a knife to his heart ; a pang which was 
terrible, but sweet. 

“ Where are we ? ” Oona said, trying to raise herself— oh, 
ang^uish !— by that broken arm. 

He could not answer her for the moment, he was so over- 
come by the pain— and he was holding her up with the other 
arm. 

“Do not hold my hand,” he said at last ; “ take hold of my 
coat. Thank God that you can speak ! ” 

“ Your arm is hurt, Walter ? ” 

“ Broken, I thinK ; but never mind ; that is nothing. 
Nothing matters so long as you have your senses. Oona, if 
we die together, it will be all right?” 

“ Yes,” she said, raising her unseen face in the darkness 
to be nearer his. He kissed her solemnly, and for the mo- 
ment felt no more pain. 

“As well this wav as another. Nothing can reach us 
here— only silence and sleep.” 

She began to raise herself slowly, until her head struck 
against the low roof. She gave a faint cry, then, finding her- 
self on her knees, put her arm round him, and they leaned 
against each other. “ God is as near in the dark as in the 
day,” she said. “Lord, deliver us!— Lord, deliver us!” 
Then, after a pause, “ What happened ? You have saved my 
life.” 

“ Is it saved ? ” he asked. “ I don’t know what has ha]i- 
pened, except that we are together.” 

Oona gave a sudden shudder and clung to him. “ I re- 
member now. He came out to the door and looked at me. 
It was I that— broke the lamp. I thought it was something 
devilish— something to harm you. It was my doing.” She 
shivered more and more, clinging to him. “ Do you think it 
is he that has shut us up in this dungeon to die ? ” 

Walter made no reply ; he did not know what she meant ; 
but it was no wonder to him that she should speak wildly. 
There were many things which rose to his own lips that had 
no meaning in them. He soothed her, holding her close to 
his breast. “I think we are in some of the vaults below— 
perhaps for our salvation.” As her courage failed there was 
double reason that he should maintain a good heart. “ There 


43 ^ 


THE WIZARD'S SOH. 


must be some outlet. Will you stay here and wait till I try 
if I can find a way ? ” 

“ Oh no, no ! ” cried Oona, clinging to him ; “ let us stay 
together. I will creep after you. 1 will not hinder you. 
She broke off with a cry, echoing, but far more keenly, the 
little moan that came from him unawares as he struck his 
arm against the wall. She felt it more sharply than he did, 
and in the darkness he felt her soft hands binding round his 
neck something warm and soft, like their own touch, in 
which she had wound the wounded arm to support it. It 
was the long white “cloud” wliich had been about her 
throat, and it warmed him body and soul ; but he said noth- 
ing by way of gratitude. They were beyond all expressions 
of feeling, partly because they had reached the limit at which 
reality is too overpowering for sentiment, and partly because 
there was no longer any separation of mine and thine be- 
tween them, and they were but one soul. 

But to tell the miseries of their search after a way of 
escape would demand more space than their historian can 
afford. They groped along the wall, thinking now that they 
saw a glimmer in one direction, now in another, and con- 
stantly brought up with a new shock against the opaque 
resistance round them, a new corner, or perhaps only that 
from which they started ; under their feet unequal heaps of 
damp soil upon which they stumbled, and broken stones over 
whicli Oona, with childlike sobs of which she was uncon- 
scious, caught her dress, falling more than once as they 
labored along. In this way they moved round and round 
their prison, a long pilgrimage. At length, when they were 
almost in despair, saying nothing to each other, only keeping 
close that the touch of each to each might be a mortal su]> 
port, they found themselves in what seemed a narrow pas- 
sage, walls on each side, and something like an arrow-slit 
over their heads, the light from which showed what it Avas, 
and was as an angel of consolation to the two wounded and 
suffering creatures stumbling along Avith new hope. But 
Avhen they had reached the end of this narrow passage, 
Walter, going first, fell for a distance of two or three feet 
into the loA^er level of another underground chamber like 
that Avhich he had left, jarring his already strained and 
racked frame, and only by an immense sudden effort hin- 
dered Oona from falling after him. The force of the shock 
and instant recovery by Avhich he kept her back and helped 
her descend Avith precaution ; brought heavy drops of exhaus- 
tion and pain to his forehead. And AAdien they discovered 
that they were nothing the better for their struggles, and 
that the place Avhich they had reached at such a cost, though 
lighter, Avas without any outlet Avhatever except that by 
Avhich they had come, their discouragement was so great 
that Walter had hard ado not to join in the tears Avhich 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


437 


Oona, altogether prostrated by the disappointment, shed on 
his shoulder. 

“ We must not give in’” he tried to say. “ Here there is 
a little light, at least. Oona, my darling, do not break down, 
or I shall break down, too.” 

“No, no,” she said, submissively, through her sobs, lean- 
ing all her w'eight upon him. He led her as well as he was 
able to a heap of earth in the corner, over which in the roof 
was a little opening to the light, barred with an iron stan- 
chion and quite out of reach, where he placed her tenderly, 
sitting down by her, glad of the rest though it was so unin- 
viting. The light came in pale and showed the straight en- 
closure of their little prison. They were neither of them able 
to resume their search, but leaned against each other, throb- 
bing with pain, and sick with weariness and disappointment. 

It gave Walter a kind of forlorn pride in his misery to 
feel that, while Oona had failed altogether, he was still able 
to sustain and uphold her. They did not speak in their 
weakness, but after a while dozed and slept, in that supreme 
necessity of flesh and blood which overcomes even despair, 
and makes no account of danger. They slept as men will 
sleep at death’s door, in the midst of enemies ; and in the 
depths of their suffering and discouragement found refresh- 
ment. But in that light sleep little moans, unawares, came 
with their breathing, for both were bruised and shaken, and 
Walter’s broken arm was on fire with fever and pain. It 
was those breathings of unconscious suffering that caught 
the ear of the minister as he made his prayer. His step had 
not disturbed them, but, when he came back accompanied 
by the others, their half trance, half slumber, was soon 
broken. The light was suddenly darkened by some one who 
flung himself upon his knees, and a voice pealed in through 
the opening 

“ Miss Oona, if ye are there, speak ! or, oh, for the love of 
the Almighty, whoever is there, speak and tell me where’s 
my leddy ! ” It was Hamish, half mad with hope and sus- 
pense and distracted affection, who thus plunged between 
them and the light. 

^ They both woke with the sound, but faintly divining 
wnat it was, alarmed at first rather than comforted by the 
renewed darkness into Avliich they found themselves plunged. 
There was a pause before either felt capable of reply, that 
deprivation being of more immediate terror to them than 
there was consolation in the half-heard voice. In this pause, 
Hamish, maddened by the disappointment of his hopes, 
scrambled to his feet reckless and miserable, and shook his 
clinched fist in the face of the minister who was behind 
him. 

“ How dare ye,” he cried, “ play upon a man that is half 
wild with your imaginations ? there’s naebody there ! ” and 


THE IV JZ A AH’S SON. 


43S 

with something between a growl and an oath he flung away, 
with a heavy step that sounded like thunder to the prisoners. 
But next moment the rage of poor Hamish melted away into 
the exceeding and intense sweetness of that relief which is 
higher ecstasy than any actual enjoyment given to men— the 
very sweetness of heaven itself ; for, as he turned away, the 
sound of a voice, low and weak, but yet a voice, came out of 
the bowels of the earth* a murmur of two voices that seemed 
to consult with each other, and then a cry of “ Oona is safe. 
Oona is here. Come and help us, for the love of God ! ” 

“ The Lord bless you ! ” cried the old minister, falling on 
his knees. “Oona, speak to me, if you are there! Oona, 
speak to me ! I want to hear your own voice.” 

There was a pause of terrible suspense. Hamish threw 
himself down, too, behind the minister, tears running over 
his rough cheeks : while the younger man, who was over- 
awed by the event, and affected, too, in a lesser degree, stood 
T/ith his face half hidden against the wall. 

“I am here,” Oona said, “all safe— not hurt even. We are 
both safe ; but oh, make haste, make haste, and take us out 
of this place ! ” 

“ God bless you, my bairn ! God bless you, my dearest 
bairn! ” cried Mr. Cameron \ but his words were drowned in 
a roar of laughter and weeping from the faithful soul behind 
him. 

“Ay, that will we. Miss Oona— that will we. Miss Oona ! ” 
Hamisn shouted, and laughed and sobbed till the walls rang, 
then clamorous with his heavy feet rushed out of sight with- 
out another word, they knew not where. 

“I’ll follow him,” said young Patrick; “he will know 
some way.” 

The minister was left alone at the opening through which 
hope had come. He was crying like a child, and ready to 
laugh, too, like Hamish. 

^ My bonny dear!” he said; “my bonny dear ” and 

could not command his voice. 

“ Mr. Cameron— my mother. She must be breaking her 
heart.” 

“ And mine,” Walter said with a groan. He thought even 
then of the bitterness of her woe, and of all the miserable rec- 
ollections that must have risen in her mind — please God not 
to come again. 

“ I am an old fool,” said Mr. Cameron, outside. “ I can- 
not stand out against the joy ; but I am going. I’m going, 
my dear. Say again you are not hurt, Oona. Say it’s you, 
my darling, my best bairn ! And me that had not the cour- 
age to say a word to yon poor woman;” he said to himself, as 
he hurried away. 

The light was still gray in the skies, no sign of the sun 
as yet; but the hills stood distinct around, and the dark 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


439 


woods, and the islands on the water, and even the sleeping 
roofs so still among their trees on the shores of the loch, had 
come into sight. The remaining portion of the house which 
had stood so many assaults, and the shapeless mass of the 
destroyed tower, stood up darkly against the growing light ; 
and almost like a part of it, like a statue that had come down 
from its pedestal, was the figure of Mrs. Methven, which he 
saw standing between him and the shore, her face turned 
toward him. She had heard the hurrying steps and the 
shout of Hamish, and knew that something had happened ; 
and she had risen against her will, against the resolution she 
had formed, unable to control herself, and stood with one 
hand under her cloak holding her heart, to repress, if possi- 
ble, the terrible throbbing in it, The face slie turned to- 
ward the minister overawed him in the simplicity of his joy. 
It was gray, like the morning, or, rather, ashen white, the 
color of death. Even now she would not, perhaps could not, 
ask anything ; but only stood and questioned him with her 
eyes, grown twice their usual size in the great hollows which 
this night had labored out. 

Mr. Cameron felt that he ought to speak carefully, and 
make easy to her the revolution from despair to joy, but he 
could not. They were both beyond all secondary impulses. 
He put the fact into the plainest words. 

“Thank God, your son is safe ! ” he cried. 

“ What did you say ? ” 

“ Oh, my poor lady, God be with you ! I dared not speak 
to you before. Your son is safe. Do you know what I mean? 
He is as safe as you or me.” 

She kept looliing at him, unable to take it into her mind ; 
had hashed upon it, seized it at the first word, yet— with a 
dumb horror holding hope away from her, lest deeper de- 
spair might follow— would not allow her to believe. 

“What— did you say? You are trying to make me 
think—” And then she broke off, and cried out “ Walter ! ” 
as if she saw him— as a mother might cry who saw her son 
suddenly, unlooked for, come into the house when all be- 
lieved him dead— fell on her knees ; then from that attitude 
sank down upon herself, and dropped prostrate on the 
ground. 

Mr. Cameron was alarmed beyond measure. He knew 
nothing of faints, and he thought the shock had killed her. 
But what could he do ? It was against his nature to leave a 
stranger helpless. He took off his coat and covered her, and 
then hurried to the door and called up Macalister’s wife, 
who was dozing in a chair. 

“ I think I have killed her,” he said, “ with my news.” 

“Then ye have found him?” the three old people said 
together, the woman clasping her hands with a wild “ Oh 


440 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


hon— oh hon ! ” while Symington came forward, trembling, 
and pale as death. 

“1 had hoped,” he said, with quivering lips, “like the 
apostles with One that was greater, that it was he that was 
to have delivered— Oh, but we are vain creatures! and 
now it’s a’ to begin again.” 

Is that all ye think of your poor young master? He is 
living, and will do well. Go and take up the poor lady. 
She IS dead, or fainted, but it is with jc'^” 

And then he went upstairs. Many an intimation of sor- 
row and trouble the minister had carried ; but good news 
had not been a weight upon him hitherto. He went to the 
other poor mother with trouble in his heart. If the one who 
had been so brave was killed by it, how encomiter her whose 
soft nature had fallen prostrate at once? He met Mysie at 
the door, who told him her mistress had slept, but showed 
signs of waking. 

“ Oh, sir, if ye could give her something that would make 
her sleep again U I could find it in my heart to give her— 
what would save my poor lady from ever waking more,” 
cried the faithful servant ; “ for oh, what will she do— oh, 
what will we all do without Miss Oona ? ” 

“ Mysie,” cried the minister, “ how am I to break it to 
her ? I have just killed the poor lady downstairs with joy ; 
and what am I to say to your mistress ? Miss Oona is safe 
and well— she’s safe and well.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Cameron.” cried Mysie, with a sob, “ I ken 
what you are meaning ! She’s well, the Lord bless her, be- 
cause she have won heaven.” 

Mrs. Forrester had woke during this brief talk, and raised 
herself upon the sofa. She broke in upon them in a tone so 
like her ordinary voice, so cheerful and calm, that they both 
turned round upon her with a kind of consternation. 

“ What is that you are saying ? safe and well— oh, safe 
and well 1 Thank God for it ! but J never had a moment’s 
doubt. And where has she been all this weary night ? and 
why did she leave me in this trouble ? Why are ye crying 
for, Mysie, like a daft woman ? You may be sure my darling 
has been doing good and not harm.” 

“ That is true, my dear lady— that is true, my dear friend ” 
cried the minister. “ God bless her 1 She has done us all 
good, all the days of her sweet life.” . 

“ And you are crying, too,” said Oona’s mother, almost 
with indignation. “What were you feared for? Do you 
think I could not trust God that has always been merciful 
tome and mine? or was it Oona ye coulcl not trust?” she 
said, with smiling scorn. “ And is she coming soon ? For it 
seems to me we have been here a weary time.^’ 

“ As soon— as she can get out of the— place where she is. 
The openings are blocked up by the ruin.^’ 


THE WIZARD^ S SON, 


441 


“I had no doubt,” said Mrs. Forrester, “it was something 
of that kind.” 

Then she rose up from the sofa, very weak and tottering, 
but smiling still, her paled and faded face looking ten years 
older, her hair all ruffled, falling out of its usual arrange- 
ment, a disorder which has a very different effect upon an 
old face and a young one. She put up her hands to her head 
with a little cry. ^ Bless me,” she said, “ she will think I 
have gone out of my senses— and you too, Mysie, to take my 
* bonnet off and expose me with no cap. I must put all this 
right again before my Oona comes.” 

Mr. Cameron left her engaged in these operations, with 
the deepest astonishment. Was it a faith above the reach 
of souls less simple? or was it but the easy rebound of a 
shallow nature ? He watched her for a moment as she put 
up her thin braids of light hair and tied her ribbons, talkmg 
all the time of Oona. 

“ She never was a night out of her bed in all her life be- 
fore ; and my only fear is she may have gotten a chill, and no 
means here of making her comfortable. Mysie, you will go 
downstairs, and try at least to get the kettle to boil and a 
cup of tea for her. Did the minister say when she would be 
here ? ” 

“ No, mem,” says Mysie’s faltering voice ; “ naething but 
that she was safe and well ; and the Lord forgive me— I 
thought— I thought ” 

“Never mind what you thought,” said Mrs. Forrester, 
briskly, “ but run downstairs and see if you can make my 
darling a good cup of tea.” 

By the time she had tied her bonnet-strings and made 
herself presentable, the full light of the morning was shin- 
ing upon the roused world. The air blew chill in her face 
as she came down the staircase (strangely weak and tottering, 
which was “ just extraordinary ” she said to herself), and 
eiherged upon the little platform outside. Several boats 
already lay on the beach, and there was a sound of the 
voices and footsteps of men breaking the stillness. Mrs. 
Forrester came out with those little graces Avhich were part 
of herself, giving a smile to old Symington, and nodding 
kindly to the young men from the yacht who were just com- 
ing ashore. “This is early hours,” she said to them with 
her smile, and went forw^ard to the little group before the 
door surrounding Mrs. Methven, who still lay where Mr. 
Cameron had left her, restored to consciousness, but incap- 
able of movement. “ Dear me,” said Mrs. Forrester, “ here 
have I been taking up a comfortable room, and them that 
have a better right left but of doors. They have given us a 
terrible night, my child and yours, but let us hope there has 
been a good reason for it, and that they will be none the 
worse. They are just coming, the minister tells me. Tf ye 


442 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


will take the help of iny arm, we might just go that way 
and meet them. They will be glad to see we are not just 
killed with anxiety, which is what my Oona will fear.” 


CHAPTER L. 

The news that Lord Erradeen, and it was supposed 
several others— some went so far as to say a party of visitors, 
others his mother, newly arrived as all the world was aware, 
and to whom he was showing the old castle, with a young 
lady who was her companion— had perished in the fire, 
streamed down the loch nobody knew how, and was known 
and believed to the end of the county before the evening was 
over. It came to the party at Birkenbraes as they were sit- 
ting down to dinner, some time after everybody had come in 
from gazing at the extraordinary spectacle of the fire— got 
up, Mr. Williamson assured his guests, entirely for their 
amusement. The good man, indeed, had been much sobered 
out of his jocose mood by his encounter with the stranger, 
but had now begun to draw a little advantage from that, too, 
and when this terrible report reached him was telling the 
lady next to him, with some pride, of Lord Eraadeen’s rela- 
tion, a very distinguished person indeed, “ I’m thinking in 
the diplomatic service, or one of the high offices that keep a 
man abroad all his life. (I would rather, for my part, live 
in a cottage at home, but that is neither here nor there.) So 
as he was leaving, and naturally could not trouble the family 
about carriages just at such a moment, I offered him the 
boat; and you might see them getting up stream. I find it 
very useful to have a> steamboat always ready, just waiting 
at the service of my friends.” The lady had replied, as in 
duty bound, and as was expected of her, that it was a magni- 
ficent way of serving your friends: which the millionaire on 
his side received with a lau^h and a wave of his hand, de- 
claring that it was nothing, just nothing, a bagatelle in the 
way 01 cost, but a convenience ; he would not deny it was a 
convenience ; when that discreet butler who had ushered 
Lord Erradeen into Katie’s private sitting-room leaned over 
his master’s shoulder with a solemn face, and a “ Beg your 
pardon, sir. They say, sir, that Lord Erradeen has perished 
in the fire.” 

“ Lord bless us ! ” said Mr. Williamson, “ what is that 
you say ? ” 

“ It is only a rumor, sir ; but I hear Kinloch-houran is all 
in a commotion, and it is believed everywhere. The young 
lord was seen with some ladies going there in a boat this 
afternoon, and they say that he has perished in the fiames.” 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


443 


Seton was fond of fine language, and his countenance was 
composed to the occasion. 

“Lord bless us ! ” cried Mr. Williamson, again. “ Send 
off a man and horse without a moment’s delay to find out 
the truth. Quick, man, and put down the sherry. I’ll help 
myself! _ Poor lad, poor lad, young Erradeen! He was 
about this house like one of our own, and no later than yes- 
terday— Katie ! do you hear ? ” he cried, half rising and 
leaning over the forest of fiowers and ferns that covered the 
table— “ Katie ! do you hear this terrible news ? but it can- 
not be true ! ” 

Katie had been told at the same moment ; and the shock 
was so great that everything swam in her eyes as she looked 
up, blanched and terror-stricken, in mechanical obedience 
to her father’s cry. “That man will have killed him,” she 
said to herself ; and then there canie over her mind a horror 
which was flattering too— which filled her w ith dismay and 
pain, yet with a strange sensation of importance. Was it 
she who was to blame for this catastrophe, was she the 
cause 

“ It seems to be certain,” said some one at the table, 
“ that Erradeen was there. He was seen on the battlements 
with a lady just before the explosion.” 

“ His mother ! ” said Katie, scarcely knowing why it was 
that she put forth this explanation. 

“A young lady. There is some extraordinary story 
among the people that she had something to do with the 
fire.” 

“ That will be nonsense,” said Mr. Williamson. “ What 
would a lady have to do with the fire? Old stone walls 
like yon are not like rotten wood. I cannot understand 
for my part ” 

“ And there could be no young lady,” said Katie. “ Mrs. 
Methven was alone.” 

“Well, well!” said her father. “I am sorry— sorry for 
Lord Erradeen ; he was just as fine a young fellow— But 
we will do him no good, poor lad, by letting our dinner get 
cold. And perhaps the man will bring us better news— 
there is always exaggeration in the first report. I am afraid 
you will find that soup not eatable. Lady Mary. Just send 
it away ; and there is some fine trout coming.” 

He 'was sincerely sorry ; but, after all, to lose the dinner 
would have spared nothing to poor young Erradeen. 

Katie said little during the long meal. Her end of the 
table, usually so gay, was dull. Now and then she would 
break in with a little spasmodic excitement, and set her 
companions talking ; then relapse with a strange mingling 
of grief and horror, and that melancholy elation which fills 
the brain of one who suddenly feels himself involved in 
great affairs and lifted to heroic heights. If it was for her 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


444 

— it it was she who was the cause of this calamity ! She had 
often dreamed of finding for herself some high heroic part 
to fulfil in the world, but it had seemed little likely that she 
would ever realize her dream ; hut now, Katie said to her- 
self, if this were so, never more should another take the 
place which she had refused to him. If he had died for her, 
she would live— for him. She would find out every plan he 
had ever formed for good and fulfil it. She would be the 
providence of the poor tenants whom he had meant to be- 
friend. She imagined herself in this poetical position always 
under a veil of sadness, yet not heavy enougri to make her 
unhappy ; known in the county as the benefactor of every- 
body, described with whispers aside as “ the lady that was 
to have married poor young Lord Erradeen ! ” Katie was 
profoundly sorry for poor Walter — for the first few minutes 
her grief was keen ; but very soon this crowd of imaging 
tions rushed in, transporting her into a new world. If this 
were so ! Already everybody at table had begun to remark 
her changed looks, and to wnisper that they had been sure 
there was “ something between ” Katie and the poor young 
lord. When the ladies went to the drawing-room they sur- 
rounded her with tender cares. 

“ If you would like to go to your room, my dear, never 
mind us.” 

“Oh, never mind us,” cried the gentle guests, “we can 
all understand^ — ” 

But Katie was prudent even at this crisis of fate. She 
reflected that the report might not be true, and that it was 
premature at least to accept the position. She smiled upon 
the ladies who surrounded her, and put her handkerchief to 
her eyes. 

“ Of course,” she said, “ I can’t help feeling it— every one 
will feel it on the loch ; and we had seen so much of nim ! 
But perhaps, as papa says, when the messenger comes back 
we may have better news.” 

The messenger did not come back till late, when the 
party were about to separate. He had found the greatest 
difficulty in getting information, for all that was known at 
Auchnasheen was that the young lord and his mother had 
gone in the boat from the Isle with the ladies to see the old 
castle. With the ladies ! Katie could not restrain a little 
cry. She knew what was coming. And he had been seen, 
the man went on, with Miss Oona on the walls— and that 
was all that was known. This stroke went to Katie’s heart. 
“ Oona ! ” she cried, with something of sharpness and bitter- 
ness in the sound ; but in the wail that rose from all around 
who knew the Isle this tone that broke the harmony of grief 
was lost. Thus her little fabric of imaginary heroism fell 
into the dust ; and for the moment the shock of a genuine, 
alloyed, sentiment thrown back upon herself; and the se- 


THE WIZARDS SON. 


445 

cret mortification with which she became conscious of the 
absurdity of her own self-complacency, kept Katie from 
feeling the natural pity called forth by such a catastrophe. 
But by-and-by her heart awakened with a deeper and truer 
pang to the thought of Oona— Oona no rival, but the friend 
of her youth, Oona the only companion of her mother, the 
young and hopeful creature whom everybody loved. To 
think that she should have thought of a little miserable ri- 
valry— of a man for whom she did not care the hundreth 
part so much as she cared for Oona, before realizing thir; 
real grief and calamity ! Katie’s honest little soul was bowed 
down with shame. She, too, watched that night with many 
a prayer and tear, gazing from her many windowed chamber 
toward the feathery crest of the Isle wliich lay between her 
and Kinloch-houran. Oh, the desolation that would be there 
and Oona gone ! Oh, the blank upon the loch, and in all the 
meetings of the cheerful neighbors ! Another man on horse- 
back was sent off by break of day for news ; and not only 
from Birkenbraes, but from every house for miles round the 
messengers hurried. There had been no such excitement in 
the district for generations. 

The news reached the Lodge— Sir Thomas Herbert’s 
shooting-box— early in the morning, when the family met at 
breakfast. The previous night had been occupied with an 
excitement of its own. Major Antrobus, Sir Thomas’s friend, 
brother in sport and arms, had been from the moment of his 
arrival a disappointment to Sir Thomas. The first evening 
Julia had caugnt him in her toils. She had sung and laughed 
and talked his heart, so much as remained to him, away. He 
was the man of all others who, his friends were convinced, 
was not a marrying man. He had a good estate, a house full 
of every bachelor comfort, and was useful to those in whom 
he was interested as only a bachelor can be.' And it was not 
only to men that he was invaluable as a friend. He had a 
box at Ascot : he had ways of making the Derby delightful 
to a party of ladies ; he was of infinite use at Goodwood ; he 
knew everybody whom it was well to know. Lady Herbert 
was almost as inconsolable as her husband at the idea of los- 
ing him. And that such a man should be brought by Sir 
Thomas himself into harm’s way, and delivered over to the 
enemy by the very hands of his friends, was more than fiesh 
and blood could bear. 

The Herberts saw their mistake before he had been at the 
Lodge two days. But what could they do ? They could not 
sendf him away— nor could they send Julia away. Had they 
done so, that young lady had already made herself friends 
enough to have secured tw'o or three invitations in a fool- 
ishly hospitable country, where everybody’s first idea was to 
ask you to stay with them . Sir Thomas acted with the noble 
generosity characteristic of middle-aged men of the world in 


THE WIZARD^ S SON. 


446 

such circumstances. He told his friends, as they smoked 
their cigars in the evening, a great many stories about Julia, 
and all she had been “ up to ” in her cneckered career. He 
described how Lady Herbert had brought her down here 
because of some supposed possibility about Lord Erradeen. 
“ But young fellows like that are not so easily taken in,” Sir 
Thomas said, and vaunted his own insight in perceivuig 
from the first that there was nothing in it. The major lis- 
tened, and sucked his cigar^ and said nothing ; but at the 
very hour when the fire at Kinloch-houran was beginning to 
redden the skies took his host aside, and said, — 

“ I say, all that may be true, you know. I don’t know 
anything about that. Girls, you know, poor things ! they’ve 
devilish hard lines when they’ve got no tin. If she’s tried it 
on, you know, once or twice before, that’s nothing; to me. 
That’s all their mothers, you know. She’s the j oiliest girl 
I ever met, and no end of fun. With her in the house, you 
know, a fellow would never be dull ; and I can tell you it's 
precious dull at Antrobus on off days, when all you fellows 
are away. I say ! I’ve asked her to be mine, you know, and 
all that ; and she’s going to have me, Tom.” 

“ Going to have you ! Oh, I’ll be bound she is, and every- 
thing youwe got belonging to you ! ” cried Sir Thomas, in 
the keenness of his annoyance. 

The major, who was somewhat red in the face, and whose 
figure was not elegant (but what trifles were these, Julia 
truly said, in comparison with a true heart !), strutted a little, 
and coughed, and set his chin into his shirt-collar. He stood 
like a man to his choice, and would have no more said. 

“ Of course she is, if she’s going to have me, you know. 
Fixtures go with the property,” said Major Antrobus, with a 
husky laugh. “And, I say, by-gones are by-gones, you know 
—but no more of that in the future, if wehe going to be 
friends.” 

The men had a quarrel, however, before Sir Thomas gave 
in, which was stopped, fortunately, before it went too far by 
his wife, who came in all smiles, with both hands extended. 

“ What are you talking loud about, you two ? ” she said. 
“ Major, I’m delighted. Of course I’ve seen it all along. She’ll 
make you an excellent wife, and I wish you all the happiness 
in the world.” 

“Thank you; he don’t think so,” the major said, with a 
growl. 

But after this Sir Thomas perceived that to quarrel with 
a man for marrying your cousin whom he has met in your 
house is one of the loolishest of proceedings. He relieved 
his feelings afterward by falling upon the partner of his 
life. 

“ What humbugs you women are ! What lies you tell ! 
You said she would make him an excellent wdfe.” 


THE WIZARD'S SON. 


447 


“ And so she will,” said Lady Herbert ; “ a capital wife ! 
He will be twice as happy— but, alas ! no good at all hence- 
forward,” she ended with a sigh. 

The excitement of this incident was scarcely over, when 
to the breakfast-table next morning, where Julia appeared 
triumphant, having overcome all opposition, the news of the 
calamity arrived, not softened by any doubt, as if the result 
were still uncertain, but reported with that pleasure in en- 
hancing the importance of dolorous intelligence which is 
common to all who have the first telling of a catastrophe. 
There was a momentary hush of horror when the tale was 
told, and then Julia, her expression changed in a moment, 
her eyes swimming in tears, rose up in great excitement from 
her lover’s side. 

“Oh, Walter!” she cried, greatly moved. “Oh, that I 
should be so happy, and he — ” And then she paused, and 
her tears burst forth.. “ And his mother— his mother ! ” She 
sat down again and wept, while the rest of the party looked 
on, the major somewhat gloomy, her cousin (after a moment- 
ary tribute of silence to death) with a dawning of triumph in 
his eye. 

“You always thought a great deal of young Erradeen, 
Ju — , at least since he has been Lord Erradeen.” 

“ I always was fond of him,” she cried. “ Poor Walter ! 
poor Walter ! Oh, you can weigh my words if you like at 
such a time, but I won’t weigh them. If Henry likes to be 
offended, I can’t help it. He has no reason. Oh, Walter, 
Walter 1 I was always fond of him. I have known him since 
I was that high— and his mother. I have always hated her. 
I have known her since I was that high. If you think such 
things go for nothing it is because you have no hearts. Harry, 
if you love me as you say, get your dog-cart ready this 
moment and take me to that poor woman — that poor, poor 
woman ! His mother — and she has only him in all the world 
Harry— take me or not, but I will go ” 

“ You said you hated her, Julia,^’ cried Lady Herbert. 

“ And so I did ; and what does that matter ? Shall I keep 
a^ayfrom her for that— when I am the only one that has 
known him all his life— that knew him when he was a child ? 
Harry ” 

“I have ordered, the dog-cart, my dear; and you are a 
good woman, Julia. I thought so, but with all your dear 
friends and people, hang me if I knew.” 

Julia gave him her hand ; she was crying without any 
disguise. 

^‘Perhaps I haven’t been very good,” she said, “but I 
never was hard-hearted ; and when 1 think upon that poor 
woman among strangers ” 

“ By Jove I but this is something new,” cried Sir Thomas ; 


THE WIZARD'S SO H. 


448 


liked young men best without their mothers, 

xxLioix, Tom,” cried his wife; “and, dear Julia be 
consistent a little— that you’re sorij for your old— friend 
(don’t laugh, Tom ; say her old flame if you like, but 
remember that he’s dead, poor fellow ! ), that we can under- 
stand. Major Antrobus Knows all that story. But this fuss 
about the mother whom you never could bear— oh that is 
a little too much ! You can’t expect us to take in that.” 

Julia turned upon her relations with what at bottom was 
a generous indignation. “If you don’t know,” she said, 
“ how it feels to hear of another person’s misfortune when 
you yourself are happier than you deserve — and if you don’t 
understand that I would go on my knees to poor Mrs. 
Methven to take one scrap of her burden off her— oh, all the 
more because I never liked her — But what is the use of 
talking ? for, if you don’t understand, nothing I could say 
would make you understand. And it does not matter to me 
now,” cried Julia— less noble feelings breaking in— “ now I 
have got one who does know what I mean, who is , going to 
stand by me and will put no bad motive ” 

The real agitation and regret in her face gave force to the 
triumph with which she turned to her major, and taking his 
arm, swept out of the room. He, too, had all the sense of 
dignity which comes from line feelings misunderstood, and 
felt himself elevated in the scale of humanity by his superior 
owers of understanding. Lady Herbert, who remained 
ehind, was saved l)y the humor of the situation from ex- 
ploding, as Sir Thomas did. To think that the delicacy of 
the major’s perceptions should be the special foundation of 
his bride’s satisfaction was. as she declared with tears of 
an^y laughter, “ too good ! ’’ 

But the second and better news arrived before Julia could 
set out on her charitable mission. Perhaps it was better 
that it should end so ; for, though the first outburst of feel- 
ing had been perfectly genuine and sincere, the impulse 
might have been alloyed by less perfect wishes before she 
had reached Kinloch-houran. And it is doubtful in any ca^ 
whether her ministrations, however kind, would have been 
acceptable to Walter’s mother. As it was, when she led her 
major back, Julia was too clever not to find a medium of 
reconciliation with her cousins, who by that time had come 
to perceive how ludicrous any quarrel open to the world 
would be. And so peace was established, and Julia Herbert’s 
difficulties came in the happiest way to an end. 


“ the girl that 
Antrobus, hey 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


449 


> 

{ 

CHAPTER LI. 

The miseries of the night’s imprisonment were soon 
forgotten. Oona, elastic in youthful health, recovered in a 
few days— she said in a few hours— from its effects ; and the 
keen reality of the after events dimmed in her mind the 
more extraordinary, less comprehensible, mystery of the 
strange discovery she had made, and left her instrumentality 
in the destruction of the tower less and less clear. Some- 
times— and this for years after— she would see before her 
with a shudder the look which the owner of the tower 
chamber cast upon her as he came out from the inner room 
and she fled before him ; but, as time went on,* would ask 
herself was it real or onl;^ some dream — some visionary and 
violent effort of imagination. To no one but Walter did she 
ever speak of that moment or of the sight she had seen ; 
and between them thev had no explanation to give of the 
mystical furniture of the wizard’s room, the lamp which had 
burned before Walter’s portrait, the sad-eyed pictures about 
the walls, which had all perished without leaving a trace 
behind. The tower, now preserving nothing more than a 
certain squareness in its mass of ruins, showed traces of two 
rooms that might have existed, but everything was destroyed 
except the walls, and any remains that might have with- 
stood the action of the Are were buried deep under the fallen 
ruin ; nor could any trace be found of concealed passages or 
any way of descent into the house from that unsuspected 
hiding-place. 

One thing was certain, however, that the being who had 
exercised so strange an influence over a year of his life never 
appeared to Walter more. There were moments in which 
he felt, with a pang of alarm, that concentration of his 
thoughts upon himself, that subtle direction and intensifi- 
cation of his mind, as if it had suddenly been driven into a 
dialogue with some one invisible, which had been the worst 
of all the sufferings he had to bear ; but these, after the first 
terror, proved to be within the power of his own efforts to 
resist and shake off, and never came to any agonizing crisis 
like that which he had formerly passed through. His mar- 
riage, which took place as soon as circumstances would permit, 
ended even these last contentions of the spirit. And if in 
the midst of his happiness he was sometimes tortured by the 
thought that the cnange of his life from the evil w^ to the 
good one had all the results of the most refined selfishness, 
as his adversary had suggested ; that he was amply proving 
the ways of righteousness to be those of pleasantness, and 
godliness to be great gain ; that thought was too ethereal 


450 


THE WIZARD'S SON, 


for common use, and did not stand the contact of reality. 
Mr. Cameron, to whom he submitted it in some moment of 
confidence, smiled with the patience of old age upon this 
overstrained self-torment. 

“ It is true enough,” the minister said, “ that the right 
way is a way of pleasantness, and that all the paths of wis- 
dom are peace. But life has not said out the last word, and 
ye will have to tread them one time or other with bleeding 
leet, or all is done— if the Lord has not given you a lot apart 
froiu that of other men. And human nature,” the old man 
said, not without a little recollection of some sermon, at 
which he smiled as he spoke, “ is so perverse that when 
trouble comes, you that are afraid of your own happiness will 
be the first to cry out and upbraid tne good Lord that does 
not make it everlasting. Wait, my young man, wait— till 
you have, perhaps, a boy at your side that will vex your heart 
as children only can vex those that love them — wait till 
death steps into your house, as step he must ” - 

“ Stop ! ” cried Walter, with a wild sudden pang of terror, 
as if the very words were an omen of evil. He never com- 
plained again of being too happy, or forgot that one time or 
other the path of life must be trod with bleeding feet. 

“ But 111 not deny ” the minister added, “ that to the like 
of you, my young lord, with so much in your power, there is 
no happier way of amusing yourself than just in being of 
use and service to your poor fellow-creatures that want so 
much and have so little. Man,” cried Mr. Cameron, “ I \yould 
have given my head to be able to do at your age the half or 
quarter of what you can do with a scratch of your pen ! And 
you must mind that you are bound to do it,” he said, with a 
smile. 

Before, however, this serene course of life began which 
Walter found too happy there was an interval of anxiety and 
pain. Mrs. Methven did not escape like the rest from the 
consequences of the night’s vigil. She got up, indeed, from 
her faint, and received with speechless thanksgiving her son 
back from the dead, as she thought— but after this was not 
herself able to go farther than to his room in the old castle, 
and there struggled for weeks in the grips of fever, brought 
on, it was said, by the night’s exposure. But this she would 
not herself allow. She had felt it coming on, she said, be- 
fore she left her home, but concealed it, not to be hindered 
from obeying her son’s summons. If this were true, or in- 
vented upon the spur of the moment to prove that in no 
way was Walter to blame, it is impossible to say. But the 
fever ran very high, and so affected her heart, worn and 
tried by many assaults, that there was a time when every- 
thmg was hushed and silenced in the old castle in expecta- 
?y-^iid-by, however, the terror gave place to 
all the innocent joys of convalescence — softfiittingof women 


THE WIZARDS SON, 


451 

up and down, presents of precious flowers and fruits light- 
ing up the gloom, afternoon meetings when everything that 
could be thought of was brought to please her, and all the loch 
came with inquiries and good wishes. Mrs. Forrester, who 
was an excellent nurse, and never lost heart, but smiled, and 
was sure in the deepest depth that all would “ come right,” 
as she said, took the control of the sick room, and recovered 
there the bloom which she had partially lost when Oona was 
in danger. And Oona stole into the heart of Walter’s 
mother, who had not for long years possessed him suffici- 
ently to make it bitter to her that he snould now put a wife 
before her. Some women never learn this philosophy : and 
perhaps Mrs. Methven might have resisted it had not Oona 
— her first acquaintance on the loch, her tenderest nurse- 
won her heart. To have the grim old house in which the 
secret of the Methvens’ fate had been laid up, and in which, 
even to indifferent lookers-on, there had always been an at- 
mosphere of mystery and terror, thus occupied with the most 
innocent and cheerful commonplaces, the little cares and 
simple pleasures of a long, but hopeful, recovery, was con- 
fusing and soothing beyond measure to all aromid. The old 
servants, who had borne for many years the presence of a 
secret wnich was not theirs, felt in this genial commotion a 
relief which words could not express, “l^o,” old Symington 
said, “ it’s not ghosts nor any such rubbitch. I never, for my 
part, here or elsewhere, saw onything worse than myself ; 
but. Miss Oona, whatever it was you did on the top of that 
tower — and how you got there the Lord above knows, for 
there never was footing for a bird that ever I saw — it has 
just been blessed. ‘ Ding down the nests and the craws will 
flee away.’ What am I meaning ? Well, that is just what I 
canna tell. It’s a’ confusion. I know nothing. Many a 
fricht and many an anxious hour have I had here, but J am 
bound to say I never saw anjdhing worse than mysel’.” 

“All that is just clavers,’’ said old Macalister, waving his 
hand. “ If ye come to that, there is naething in this life that 
will bide explaining. But I will no deny that there is a kind 
of a different feel in the air which is maybe owing to this fine 
weather, just wonderful for the season ; or maybe to the fact 
of so many leddies about, which is a new thing here— no that 
I hold so much with women,” he added, lest Oona should be 
proud ; “they are a great fyke and trouble, and will meddle 
with everything ; but theyue fine for a change, and a kind of 
soothing for a little while at a time, after all we’ve gone 
through.” 

Before the gentle regime of the sick-room was quite over, 
an unusual and unexpected visitor arrived one morning at 
Loch Houran. It was the day after that on which Mrs. 
Methven had been transferred to Auchnasheen, and a great 
festival among her attendants. She had been brought down 


THE WIZARHS SON. 


452 

to the drawing-room very pale and shadowy, but with a re- 
laxation of all the sterner lines whieh had once been in her 
face, in invalid dress arranged after Mrs. Forrester’s taste 
rather than her own, and lending a still further softness to 
her appearance, not to be associated with her usual rigid 
garb ot black and white. And her looks and tones were the 
most soft of all as, the centre of everybody’s thoughts, she 
was led to the sofa near the fire and surrounded by that half 
worship which is the right of a convalescent where love is. 
To this pleasant home-scene there entered suddenly, ushered 
in with great solemnity by Symington, the serious and some- 
what stern “ man of business ” who had come to Sloebury 
not much more than a year before with the news of that 
wonderful inheritance so unexpected and unthought of 
which had seemed to Mrs. Methven, as well as to her son, 
the beginning of a new life. Mr. Milnathort made kind but 
formal inquiries after Mrs. Methven’s health, and offered his 
congratulations no less formally upon her recovery. 

‘u need not say to you that all that has happened has 
been an interest to us that are connected with the family be- 
yond an^hing that I can express. I have taken the liberty,” 
he added, turning to Walter, “ to bring one to see you. Lord 
Erradeen, who has, perhaps, the best right of any one living 
to give ye joy. I said to her that you would come to her, for 
she has not left her chamber, as you know, for many a year ; 
but nothing would serve her but to come herself, frail as she 
is ” 

“Your sister?” Walter cried. 

“ Just my sister. I have taken the freedom,” Mr. Milna- 
thort repeated, “to have her carried into the library, where 
you will find her. She has borne the journev better than I 
could have hoped, but it is an experiment that makes me 
very anxious. You will spare her any emotion, any shock, 
that you can help ? ” 

The serious face of the lawyer was more serious than ever, 
his long upper lip trembled a little. He turned round to the 
others with anxious self-restraint. 

“ She is very frail,” he said ; “ a delicate bit creature all 
her life— and since her accident ” 

He spoke of this, as his manner was, as if it had happened 
a week ago. 

Walter hurried away to the library, in which he found 
Miss Milnathort carefully arranged upon a sofa, wrapped up 
in white furs instead of her usual garments, a close white 
hood surrounding the delicate brightness of her face. She 
held out her hands to him at first without a word ; and when 
she could speak, said, with a tremble in her voice. 

“ I have come to see the end of it. I have come to see— 
her and you.” 


THE WIZARD^ S SON. 


453 

“ I should have come to you,” cried Walter. “ I did not 
forget — but for my mother’s illness ” 

“Yes? ’’she said, with a grateful look. “ You thought 
upon me? Oh, but my heart has been with her and you! 
Oh, the terrible time it was ! the first news in the papers ; 
the fear that you were buried there under the ruins, you— 
and she— and then to wait a night and a day ” 

“ I should have sent you word at once— I might have 
known ; but I did not think of the papers.” 

“ No, how should you? you were too busy with your own 
life. Oh, the thoughts of that night ! I just lay and watched 
for you from the darkening to the dawning. No, scarcely 
what you could call praying— just waiting upon the Lord. I 
bade Him mind upon Walter and me — that had lost the bat- 
tle. And I thought I saw you, you and your Oona. Was 
not I wise when I said it was a well-omened name ? ” She 
paused a little, weeping and smiling. “ I could not tell you 
all the thoughts that went through my mind. I thought, if 
it was even so, there might have been a worse fate. To break 
the spell and defeat the enemy, even at the cost of your two 
bonny lives — I thought it would not be an ill fate, the two of 
you together. Hid I not say it ? Two that made up one, the 
perfect man. That is God’s ordinance, my dear ; that is His 
ordinance. Two— not just for pleasure, or for each other, 
but for Him and for everHhing that is good. You believed 
me when I said that. Oh, you believed me ! and so it was 

not in vain that I was— killed yon time long ago ” Her 

voice was broken with sobs. She leaned upon Walter’s 
shoulderj who had knelt down beside her. and wept there 
like a child — taking comfort like a child, “ Generally,” she 
began, after a moment. “ there is little account made — little, 
little account of them mat have gone before, that have been 
beaten, Walter. 1 can call you nothing but Walter to-day. 
And Oona, though she has won the battle, she is just me, but 
better. We lost it. We had the same heart ; but the time 
had not come for the victory ; and now you, my young lord, 
you, young Erradeen, like him— you have won, Oona and 
you. We were beaten, but yet I have a share ill it. How 
can you tell, a young man like you, how those that have been 
defeated lift their hearts and give God thanks ? ” She made 
a pause and said, after a moment, “ I must see Oona too.” 
But when he was about to rise and leave her in order to bring 
Oona, she stopjied him once more. “ You must tell me first,” 
she said, speaking very low, “ what is become of him ? Did 
he let himself be borne away to the clouds in yon fiames ? I 
know, I know, it’s all done ; but did you see him ? Did he 
speak a word at the end ? ” 

“Miss Milnathort,” said Walter, holding her hands, 
“there is nothing but confusion in my mind. Was it all a 
dream and a delusion from beginning to end ? ” ^ * 


THE WIZARD^ S SON. 


454 

She laughed a strange little laugh of emotion. 

“ Look at me, then,” she said ; for what I suffered these 
thirty years? And you— was it all for nothing that you 
were so sore bestead and ready to fall ? Have you not seen 
him ? Did he go without a word ? ” 

Walter looked back upon all the anguish through which 
he had passed, and it seemed to him but a dream. One great 
event, and then weeks of pain had intervened since the day 
when driven to the side ot the loch in madness and misery, 
he had found Oona and taken refuge in her boat, and thrown 
himself on her mercy, and since the night when, once more 
driven distracted by diabolical suggestions, he had stepped 
out into the darkness, meaning to lose himself somehow for 
the night and be no more heard of, but was saved again by 
the little light in her window, the watch-light that love kept 
burning. These recollections and many more swept through 
his mind, and the pain and misery, more remote, upon which 
this old woman’s childlike countenance had shone. He could 
not take hold of them as they rose before him in the dark- 
ness, cast far away in the shadowy background by the 
brightness and reality of the present. A strange giddiness 
came over his brain. He could not tell which was real, the 
anguish that was over, or the peace that had come; or 
whether life itself— fl3rLng in clouds behind him, before hid 
under the widespreading sunshine— was anything but a 
dream. He recovered himself with an effort, grasping hold 
of the latest recollection to satisfy his questioner. 

“ This I know,” he cried, “ that when she came to me 
flying from the tower, vdth flame and destruction behind 
her, the word she was saying was ‘ Pardon ! Pardon ! ’ That 
was all I heard. And then the rush of the air in our faces, 
and a roar that was like the e^d of all things. We neither 
he jird nor saw more.” 

. “ Pardon ! ” said Miss Milnathort, drying her eyes with a 
trembling hand : “ that is what I have said many a weary 
hour in the watches of the night. What pleasure can a spirit 
like yon find in the torture of his own flesh and blood ? The 
Lord forgive him if there is yet a place of repentance ! But 
well I know what you mean, that it is just like a vision when 
one awaketh. That is what all our trouble will be when the 
end comes— just a dream ! and good brought out of evil, and 
pardon given to many— many a one that men are just willing 
to ^ give over and curse instead of blessing. ISfow go and 
bring your Oona, my bonny lad ! I am thinking she is just 
me and you are Walter, and we have all won the day to- 
gether,” said the invalid, clasping her thin hands, and with 
eyes that shone through their tears— “all won together! 
though we were beaten twenty years ago.” 


THE END. 


j LOVELL'S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE, 


yre’a Acquittal 10 

1,000 Leagues Under 
(he Sea, by Verne. . . 
ti-Slavery Days... 
auty’a Daughters., 
yond the Sunrise.. . 
lard Times, Dickens 
'om Cringle’s Log'. . , 

faiiHy F'jjj- 

“’nderg^;ound Russia; 
iddlemSrch, ElLpt.. 
o.. Part , 

ir Tom, MrsDiip.f^nt 


.20 

.20 

.20 

.20 

.20 

'.20 

.BO 

.20 

.20 

.20 

.20 

.20 

.10 

20 


•elham, by Lyttoh, 
i*he Story of Ida:'.,. . 
adcap BlaC 

e Little Pilgrim .... .;10 
Jmettyr~by-Bliiiikrr. .20 
■ ist or Bumble^ 

uppy? .10 

e Beautiful Wretch .20 

r Mo ther’s 20 

reen Pastwes^nd 
ccadi’dyydBlack ... .20 
e Mysterious Island .15 

Part II 15 

jo., Partin .15 

im Brow^t Oxford .15 
lo., PartllT'.'r.'rTT^. . .15 
bicker than Water. . .20 
! Silk Attire, Black. .20 
|!otti^'Chlef«,jP*t-irj-50 

p.. Part II >.20 

rilly RetHyrCSrleton .20 
‘er - ■' 

sat 

ndennis, Thackeray .20 

Part II ,20 

idow Bedo tt Papers .20 

^niel PlifOirrjT^E.ia;;. .20 

Part II 20 

Itiora Peto, Oliphant .20 
the Gate of the Sea .15 
es of a Traveller. .20 
;e and Voyages of 

lumbus P’tl. .20 

(Irving), Part II... .20 
ke Pilgrim’s Progress .20 
■rtin Chuzzlewit. . . .20 


k.. Part II 20 

^phrastus Such, . . .10 
pBrmed, M. Edwards .15 


Spanish Gypsy 

md Other Poems 20 

Mt Up by the Sea. . . .20 
Bl onihe Floss, P’tl .15 
P (Eliotlr-Raryirr^. .15 
jjkther Jacob, Eliot. .10 

|e Executor 20 

^erican Notes 15 

leNewcomes, Parti .20 

i, Partn 20 

;ie Privateersman ... .20 
ije Tbf6«-Eeatinn'3r^.20 

ijantom Fortune 20 

M Eric, Ballantyne. .20 
!py Si Iyer dale’ 8 
Sweetheart, Black. . . .10 


217. The Pour Macnicols. *10 

218. Mr. Pisistratus Brown .10 

219. Dombey & Son, Part I 20 


Do., 20 

220. Book of Snobs 10 


221. Grimm’s Fairy Tales.. ,20 

222. .The Disowned, Lytton .20 

223. LittleiDorrit, Dickens. ,20 

Db.,Fa^iL>:r- 20 

224., Abbot6folu and New- 
Btead Abbdy, Ixving. .10 

225. Oliver Goldsmith..... .10 

226. The Fire i^rigado .20 

227. Rifle and Hound in 

Ceylon 20 

228. Our Mutual Friend. , . .2o 

Do. BwfTIt: 20 

229. Paris Sketches. . . . . .15 

230. BelihdarnBmugaton. . . .20 

231. Nicholas Nickleby.i . . 

Do., Part II. .20 

232 Monarch Mincing Lane .20 

233. Eight Years Wander- 

ing in Ceylon, Baker .20 

234. Pictures from Italy..., .15 

235. Adventures of Philip. .15 

Do., Part II 15 

236. Knickerbocker His- 

tory of New York ... .20 

237. The Boy at Mugby 10 

238. The Virginians, P’t I. .20 

Do., Part II 20 

239. Erling the Bold. 20 

240. Kenelrn Ctfldlngly 20 

241. Deep Down 20 

242. Samuel Brohl & Co . . . .20 

243. Gautran, by Parjeon.. ,20 

244. Bleak HauaeyPart I.. .20 

Do., ParfeTl 20 

245. What Will He Do Wi’ It .20 

Do., Part II 20 

246. Sketches of Young 

Couples .10 

247. Devereus, Lytton 20 

248. Life of Webster, 2 pts,' .30 
240. The Crayon Papers... .20 

250. TheCaxtons, Lytton. -.15 

Do., Part II 15 

251. Autobiography of An- 

thony Trollope . . . .20 

252. Critical Reviews, by 

Thackeray 10 

253. Luoretia, Lytton, P’tl .20 

254. Peter, the Whaler 20 

255. Last" of the Barons.. .15 

Do., Part II .15 

256. Eastern Skctche.T 15 

257. All in a Garden Fair. .20 

258. File No. 113, Gaboriau .20 

259. The Parisians, Lytton, .20 

Do., Part II , .20 

260. Mrs. Darling’s Letters .20 

261. Master Humphrey’s 


Clock 10 

262. Fatal Boots, Thackr’y .10 

263. The Alhambra, Irving .15 
2^. The Four Georges. .. .10 


265, Plutarch’s Lives, 5 pts 1.00 

266. Under the Red Flag... .10 


267. The Haunted House.. .10 

268. When the Ship Comes 


Home 10 

269. One False, both Fair. , .20 

270. Mudfog Papers. 10 

271. My Novel, by Bulwer- 

Lytton. 3 parts .60 

272. Conquest of Granada.. .20 

273^ l & k o Lchcs by Bug w 20 

274. A C hr^istia fe»4i«rol 15 

275. lone sT^art, Linton , . .20 

276. Harold, Lytton, Parti .15 

Do., Part II 15 

,277. Dora Thome 20 

278. Maid of Athens .20 

279. The Conquest of Spain ,10 

280. Pitzboodle Papers 10 

281. Br^cebridge Hall 20 

282. The Uncommercial 

Tr^i'eler 20 

283. Rolindabout Papers. .. .20 

284. Rossmoyne, Duchess. .20 

285. A Legend of the Rhine ,10 

286. Cox’s Diary 10 

287. Beyond Pardon, .20 

288. Somebody’s Luggage, 

and Mrs. Lirriper’s 
Lodgings 10 

289. Godolphm, Lytton 20 

290. Salmagundi, Irving 20 

291. Famous Funny Fel- 

lows, Clemens... 20 

292. Irish Sketches 20 

293. The Battle of Life 10 

294. Pilgrims of the Rhine .15 

295. Random Shots, Adeler .20 

296. Men’s Wives 10 

297. Mystery of Edwin 

Drood, by Dickens, . , .20 

298. Reprinted Pieces from 

C. Dickens. .. 20 

299. Astoria, by W. Irving. .20 

300. Novels by Eminent 

Hands 10 

301. Danish Voyages 20 

302. No Thoroughfare 10 


303. Character Sketches . 1I0>- 

304. Christtii«9HioekiL. /C//^^[^y^ 

305. A Tour on the Prairies ,1(1 


306. Ballads of Thackeray.. .15 

307. Yellowplush Papers. . . ,10 

308. Life of Mahomet, P’t I .15 

Do., Part II 15 

309. Sketches and Travels 

in London, Thack’ray .10 

310. Life of Goldsmith 20 

311. Capt. Bonneville 20 

312. Golden Girls, Alan Muir .20 

313. English Humorists ... .15 

314. Moorish Chronicles... .10 

315. Winifred Power 20 

316. Great Hoggarty Dia- 

mond 10 

317. Pausanias, Lytton 15 

318. The New Abelard .... .20 

319. A Real Queen 20 

320. The Rose and the Ring .20 

321. Wolfert’s Roost, Irving .10 

322. Mark Seaworth. 20 


turn MS mvEpn 



Vitalized Phos-pliite 


COMPOSED OP THE NERVE-GIVING PRINCIPLES i 
THE OX-BRAIN AND WHEAT-GERM. 


It restores the energy lost by Nervousness or Indigestion ; r 
Lassitude and Neuralgia; refreshes the nerves tired by worry, < 
ment, or excessive brain fatigue ; strengthens a failing memor 

f lives renewed vigor in all diseases of Nervous Exhaustion or D 
t is the only PREVENTIVE FOR CONSUMPTION. 

It aids vrniderfuU^ in the mental and hodUy growth of ir^ 
tWd/ren. Under its use the teeth come eoMer, the bones grow better » \ 
jpiumper and soother; the brain acquires more readily, a/nd rests an 
more sweetly. An ill-fed brain learns no lessons, and is excusa/bU if ^ 
It gi/oes a Tmppwr and better childhood. 


“It is with the utmost confidence that I recommend this excellt 
paration for the relief of indigestion and for general debility; nay, I 
than recommend, 1 really urge all invalids to put it to the test, fox 
eral cases personally known to me signal benefits have been deriv 
its use. I have recently watched its effects on a young friend v 
suffered from indigestion all her life. After taking the Vitalizb] 
PHITES for a fortnight she said to mo; • I feel another person; it is 
ure to live. ’ Many hard-working men and women — especially those < 
in brain work — would be saved from the fatal resort to chloral ai 
destructive stimulants, if they would have recourse to a remedy sc 
and so efficacious.'* 

Emily FAiTHFt 


Physicians hath prescribed over 600,000 Packages becaus 
KNOW ITS Composition, that it is not a secret remedy, 4 

THAT THB FORMULA IS PRINTED 02f EVERY t.awbi. 

For Sale by DrnnlEta or by afall, #x. 


F. CE0SB7 CO., 661 and 666 Sixth IvanM. Nr 


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